Sleeping Monsters
by Honest Usual
Summary: She intended for her return to Hi no Kuni to be brief and anonymous, but she was never a lucky shinobi. And neither was Kakashi. He was the shinobi ordered to deal with her.
1. Monsters in Niokou

A/N: _Sleeping Monsters_ is a Kakashi-centric story which also features an original character. This does not mean that _Sleeping Monsters_ will end up as Kakashi x OC. In fact, it probably won't, but we'll see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

* * *

As the young woman crested the peak of the anticlinal ridge, she hesitated, interrupting the smooth pace she had kept since morning. She looked out over the land stretching before her—rolling hills covered in lush forests of oak and poplar. The sky was clear, and a few large carrion birds lifted slowly on invisible currents. For May, it was unseasonably warm, but the breeze at her back still felt cool due to the elevation of the highlands she was about to walk out of. Overall, any average person would have stopped to acknowledge the beautiful vista, but she was not there to appreciate the scenery. 

_The border of Hi no Kuni_, she thought to herself quietly. She was reluctant to take one more step forward. The desire to turn around and avoid the place altogether bubbled forth uninvited. And though she understood the source of these feelings, she chastised herself for allowing such irrational emotions to surface. In truth, she had absolutely no justification to change her course. There were no bounties or arrest warrants issued for her in Hi no Kuni. There were no wars or local conflicts to become mired in; it was a politically stable country with a strong hidden village to keep the peace. On top of that, the citizens of Hi no Kuni enjoyed a high standard of living compared to most places she had been. Simply put, this country did not need her or anybody like her. Her presence there would be insignificant and unremarkable.

It was childish to think that the Hi no Kuni would be any different from the many other places she had been. Yes, childish, and she was an adult. And adults know that sometimes, you don't get to do what you want. She had responsibilities, and she was obliged to go wherever they took her. Honestly, she could not have expected to avoid this country forever. Still, upon reaching the border, she made an unspoken promise to go in, capture her target, and get out as quickly as possible, neither making a scene nor attracting unwanted attention. If she encountered any local ninja, she would slip away and try again later. This was not her first time doing this sort of thing, and she was no amateur.

Feeling better after the internal pep talk, she adjusted her backpack and took a step down the ridge, into Hi no Kuni.

**Chapter 1 - Monsters in Niokou**

_So many choices!! What to try? What to eat? I want to sample it all!_

Naruto, grinning uncontrollably, looked back and forth at the diverse booths lining the street of the border town's food bazaar. The multitude of smells was overwhelming, and he was so hungry that he couldn't focus on any specific vendor's offerings. He wanted them all, and he felt slaver build at the corners of his lips. Kakashi-sensei had ordered Naruto to eat some lunch, after Naruto's rumbling stomach kept interrupting the complicated conversation with their inkhorn client. Kakashi and the rest of Team 7, slightly annoyed and embarrassed at the time, stayed to discuss the mission while Naruto scampered to the busy plaza. Kakashi figured he would just have to explain the mission later, using simpler language.

Naruto was not disappointed about missing the conference. They had traveled a day and a half to reach the small town of Niokou for just another D-Rank cakewalk mission, and the three genin would probably end up doing all the work, anyway. Kakashi-sensei would likely just lounge around, reading his stupid book and 'supervising'.

Finally, Naruto decided to start with the takoyaki, and follow that up with about five other street delicacies. He opened his mouth to place his first order when he heard a scream. He looked towards the noise and saw an emaciated boy, maybe five years old, pushing his way through the crowd. The child's brown eyes trembled wide with fright, and he kept glancing back anxiously. He was panting and struggling to wade though the sea of legs, when he took one misstep over a townsman's foot and fell face-first in the middle of the street. The child rolled over, gripped his ankle, and winced in pain. Naruto immediately forgot his hunger and ran over to the boy, who now had tears streaming from the edges of his eyes.

"Help me…," said the boy in a small, out-of-breath voice, as he nervously glimpsed past Naruto, through the crowd.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, concerned.

However, before the boy could answer, Naruto heard a voice—a female voice—bark at him from behind, "There you are!" Naruto whipped around to find the townspeople backing away from a slender young woman who stood a good distance behind him. She gazed straight at him and the boy, her jaw tense and her body in a forward-leaning stance suggesting that she was the one chasing the boy, and that she meant to catch him.

_A ninja? _thought Naruto. He saw no forehead protector or insignia to indicate she belonged to a hidden village. Still, several pouches hung from her belt, and a walking staff was secured across her lower back. Those pouches could conceal kunai and shuriken, and that staff could easily be a weapon. Her backpack could carry scrolls or explosives. The woman's clothing was practical—not a ninja uniform, but something a kunoichi might wear in the field. Naruto didn't see any pieces of armor, like suneate or kote, but her engineer-style boots and fitted black pants were not common in this area. The sleeves of her loose, untucked white shirt hung slack just below her elbows, where Naruto noticed bandages wrapped from her wrists to halfway up her forearms. Whatever this woman was, she did not look like a normal villager. He had to assume she was dangerous.

The fallen young ragamuffin let out a pathetic whimper. Naruto became riled. He stood up straight, boldly pointed at the newcomer, and shouted, "I don't care who you are. Adults shouldn't harass little children!"

"Stay out of this, kid. This doesn't involve you," she yelled back aggressively and made a blunt horizontal slicing motion with her hand to emphasize her point.

Naruto clenched his jaw, angry that the woman dismissed him like that and angry that she was terrorizing such a small child. "I'm not going to let you hurt anybody. I'll kick your ass! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Suddenly, in a puff of smoke, twelve Narutos stood between the woman and the boy. The woman's eyebrows rose up in surprise as she realized she had a new problem.

The twelve kage bunshin ran at the woman simultaneously, while the real Naruto used the moment of confusion to the rescue the injured child. Naruto heaved the boy onto his back and ran off down the street. "Don't worry kid. I'll take you somewhere safe." _And then go back and beat up that stupid woman._

**- - -**

"Damn it!" the woman hissed to herself. She saw the leaf-emblem hitai-ate tied around the foreheads of the clones. Only three days in Hi no Kuni, so close to her goal, and she had to run into Konoha ninja. _So much for self-made promises of low profiles._

The squad of orange-clad clones ran towards her, and she narrowed her eyes as she analyzed the situation. As half of them broke away to come at her from the sides and back, she sucked in a quick breath when she realized the truth. _These aren't illusions. These are solid c__lones!_ However, common sense quickly overcame her initial surprise. _But it's fine. Judging from his age and this abrupt, obvious attack, he's probably a genin, or maybe a rookie chuunin. A jounin would begin with a more subtle attack to conserve chakra and__ test__ my abilities. These clones won't be too powerful. I just need to dispatch them quickly._

The woman held her position in the center of the now empty street while she patiently let the clones come to her. Her body relaxed in practiced preparation for a fight. Calm but ready to react, she bent down slightly and reached back with her right hand, resting it on the grip of her jou, the short staff that served as her preferred weapon.

_Wait. Closer._ The Narutos closed in, and she watched the space between them shrink. _Now!_ She swiftly pulled the jou out of its sleeve, flipped her wrist to drive the end into the first clone on the right, and then swung her arm around in front of her, stepping into the move and twisting her body to give more weight to the blow. Four more clones were hit, disappearing in puffs of smoke as she swept the jou through them. _Seven left._ Now, turned around partially, she saw the clones about to attack from behind_. Four behind me. The other three will be above or below. _

She passed the jou to her left hand and dug the end into the ground. Putting her weight on it and using it as a pivot point, she swung her right leg around in a straight kick. The stiff, metal-lined toe of her boot connected with three of the clones coming from behind, but the kick had lost too much momentum to take out the fourth_. The other three should be almost on top of me. Got to dodge it._ She planted her right foot on the ground and pushed off with the jou, lunging horizontally across the ground into the fourth clone she had missed with the kick. That clone dispersed in smoke as she connected hard with her shoulder. She dove into the ground, rolled on her back and side, and came up in a crouch facing the location where she stood a moment ago.

The three remaining clones were indeed hurling down from above, fists extended to take out the enemy. Two of them collided at the spot where she had been, conveniently taking each other out. The woman let out a brief snort. _Definitely a genin._ The surviving clone tumbled to the ground, adeptly rolled to his feet, and charged. She waited motionlessly in her crouch with her hand lightly resting on the jou lying on the ground in front of her. When the clone was about hit, she swept the jou up, knocking the clone's fist away from her face and then driving her own clenched fist into the clone's gut, causing that one to disappear as well.

The woman stood up and looked around. The townspeople were quickly evacuating the area, but the real Naruto was nowhere to be found. _Of course. Distract your enemy with disposa__ble clones and give yourself time to get away.__ Not a dumb plan, but still a waste of chakra._ Her target was also missing, and she assumed the Konoha genin was trying to rescue it. She slid her jou back into the silk sleeve attached to the back of her belt and took a deep breath. Then, she took off after the pair.

**- - - **

Naruto had cleared village streets and was running through the dense cedar forest that surrounded the town of Niokou. He listened for sounds of pursuit, but it seemed he had outrun the woman. Maybe now, he could take a minute to decide what to do with the child he carried. He looked over his shoulder at the boy's face, which stared back at him with eyes moist from tears. Naruto slowed his pace.

"Hey, kid, what's your name?" asked Naruto.

"Ryu," the boy responded in a shaky, timid voice.

"Well, Ryu, is there some place I can take you? Does your family live near here?"

Ryu sniffled slightly and shook his head from side to side. "My parents died last year. I don't have any other family. I…I just live off of what the villagers hand out to me."

Naruto immediately felt sympathy for Ryu. He understood what it was like to be an orphan. What it was like to be alone. Maybe there was some way he could help the boy. "Why was that noisy woman chasing you?"

"She called me a street urchin and said that I stole her money purse, but I didn't, I swear!" Ryu exclaimed with such emphatic sincerity that Naruto believed him. Naruto wondered if he could convince the woman that Ryu was not a thief, although she sure did not look like she was willing to talk things over.

Abruptly, a figure dropped down from the branches above, landing not more than half a meter in front of them. Naruto immediately recognized the aggressive woman from the village, but it was useless. She was too close, and he was not going to be able to stop in time. He tensed, prepared for a collision that never came. With unexpected speed, she had her forearm on the back of his neck, forcing him down and forward. Naruto was already unbalanced from the combined weight of his backpack and Ryu, and he started to plunge uncontrollably towards the ground. As he fell past her side, she swung her opposing knee over his back and into Ryu. The small boy went flying sideways, and his thin body smashed against the broad truck of a tree. The woman's bandaged forearm slid across Naruto's neck, until she gripped the nape with her hand. She pushed him down further and along the direction of his momentum, and, significantly lighter with Ryu off his back, Naruto tumbled violently face-first into the dirt, stopping several meters behind the woman.

Naruto rolled over quickly, ready to get up and counterattack, but he was only fast enough to see the woman's final hand seal. "Nekko Shibaru Jutsu!" she shouted. Small, wiry roots pushed out of the ground and wrapped around the limbs of both Naruto and Ryu. Naruto fought against the restraints, but more roots wound around his body until he was immobilized. From his position, he could see Ryu struggling under the same technique at the base of a tree, and Naruto was surprised that the boy was even conscious, considering the force of Ryu's impact had left the bark of the tree splintered and dented.

The woman's techniques had been fast, and events had moved rapidly, but suddenly, everything was still. Naruto and Ryu were bound tightly, and the woman was standing casually between them, her weight resting to the side, over her hip. The ends of the jou stuck out from the sides of her back, and she absent-mindedly rested her elbows on the weapon. She was not out of breath at all, and if someone came across them, they would never guess she had just been fighting. Naruto could see her in profile, as she was facing Ryu. However, she looked like her thoughts were kilometers away, pondering economics or something equally as mundane.

It appeared that the woman had completely forgotten about Naruto. She walked a few steps towards Ryu, stared down at him, and sighed.

"You've given me a bit of trouble. But, I guess that's to be expected," she said flatly.

"No…no. Please…don't." Ryu was begging for mercy. His voice was small and desperate, causing Naruto to strain even more against the roots holding his body down. Ryu's imploring words did not even register with the woman.

_What kind of cold-hearted monster is she? She's looking at him like he's nothing but a dead rat_, thought Naruto, disgusted.

Without taking her eyes off Ryu, the woman reached into the pouch on her hip and took out a small, brown drawstring bag. She poured a portion of its contents into her hand and put the bag back into the pouch. Then, she opened her hand as she swept it away from her body, and a fine, greenish dust clouded the air over Ryu, whose unacknowledged pleas continued. To Naruto's horror, Ryu started screaming in agony, but even more horrifying was the change in Ryu. His skin turned dark and oily and started to squeeze out from between the roots holding him in place. Ryu's screams turned to mucus-laden gurgles as the more dust settled onto his writhing form.

The woman intently, yet disinterestedly, watched the whole process. When enough dust settled, she brought her hands together in a seal and gathered the chakra needed. "Hisui Kihanfuuin!" The gurgles stopped, and the viscous, gooey mass that had been Ryu instantly shrunk back into the nest of tree roots.

"What the hell is going on?!" Naruto spat out between clenched teeth. A root restrained his jaw, and he had difficulty enouncing the words. The woman ignored him as she bent over and groped around in the roots where Ryu had been. After a minute, she pulled something out and put it in another, larger drawstring bag that she took from her hip pouch. She closed the bag and regarded it for a minute before placing it back in the pouch. Finally, her attention turned to Naruto.

"Are you stupid, kid?" The calm demeanor from a minute ago was gone, as if it never existed. She was not hiding her anger, and she walked over to him and crouched down to his level. She glared at him. The gaze from her pale blue eyes was so intense, that Naruto felt like it was about to cause him physical pain. It reminded him of other kunoichi he knew—Sakura-chan and Ino, for example. Scary Eyes must be a special technique taught exclusively to females—a technique that you never saw coming.

Remembering that this woman had just done something horrible to a little boy, suddenly Naruto did not care about the Scary Eyes. Even tied down, he could still _yell_ some sense into this woman. She cut him off by mere microseconds when she continued castigating him. "Do you know what that was?" She pointed straight out to side, to where Ryu had been. The obvious answer was no, and Naruto was not too stupid to recognize a rhetorical question. He said nothing. "That was a kokyuuma, a shape-shifter. A goddamn monster without a soul. If you had managed to escape with that thing, it would have eaten an idiot like you for dinner!" She let the words sink in while she continued to glare. "You really should not interfere with things you know nothing about."

"What are you talking about, you crazy bitch? You're the monster! He was just a boy! You're just making shit up so that I won't beat you to a pulp!" Naruto retorted. The woman found his threat ironically hollow, considering the Konoha-nin was tied to the ground.

"Why the hell would I seal up an innocent little boy? Huh? And, if I am such a monster, why are you still alive? Trust me, you have irritated me beyond patience, and I am currently reaching into the bottom of my very human store of compassion just to keep from strangling you." She apparently liked rhetorical questions.

Naruto was frustrated, but something sensible made it through his anger. "If that kid really was a monster, how the hell was I supposed to know? He was in danger. What kind of ninja just ignores that?" He braced for more venomous lecturing, but instead, the woman glared at him some more, as if trying to properly assemble the next barrage of words. However, instead of speaking, she reached a hand into her pouch and withdrew a kunai.

"Hey, hey! What are you going to do with that?" Naruto still couldn't move, and he thought it extremely unfair for the woman to attack him when he was all tied up.

She looked down at the ground and did not say anything for a few seconds. Then, she blinked slowly. "Geez, you're incredibly loud, for a ninja." She slid the kunai under his body, cutting away the roots wrapped around his arms and chest.

Finally able to move again, Naruto propped himself up on his elbows and wondered if he should still beat the woman up. He reached out and started pulling the roots away from his legs, but the woman was unconcerned. She spoke again, more calmly now, while looking past him off into the thicket. "That's their trick, kid. The kokyuuma can read your nature and turn into whatever form will get them what they want. I was after that one, so it changed into a helpless child. It must have known that you would protect it. That you would feel some sense of duty. It may have been convincing, but it was just an act. It probably would have continued to use you, maybe even draining your soul once it was safe. Things aren't always what they seem, you know."

She continued, distantly, "I've seen them take on the form of beautiful women to draw desperate men. They become parents to orphans, babies to barren women, and best friends to outcast children. Even when the victims realize something is very wrong, they don't care. They just allow themselves to waste away into empty shells as the monster drains the life from them. The kokyuuma—they're barely sentient, but they know. They know how much people will deceive themselves to escape from their loneliness. There aren't many people who can resist them."

Naruto was unsure if the woman was still talking to him, but he did understand some things about loneliness. A creature that preyed on people's loneliness was truly a monster in his mind. The woman glanced back at Naruto, who looked concerned. She had touched on something personal to him, and she felt a tad guilty for yelling at him. She smiled gently and decided to distract him. "But, it's ok. There was no harm in the end, right? Hm? What's your name, kid?"

"Uzumaki Naruto." He was more subdued than normal, still thinking about Ryu. The woman stood up and held out her hand. It was a gesture of peace and friendship. Naruto guessed that she was probably not an enemy. Accepting the offer, he grasped her hand, and she pulled him up into a standing position.

The woman tilted her head sideways and looked at Naruto. Her expression became warmer and less threatening. Naruto actually found it comforting. "My name's Kodora," she said. "I'm sorry for all the trouble." Naruto's stomach let out a loud growl. He still had not eaten. Kodora laughed lightly. "Tell you what, Naruto-kun. I saw a ramen stand back in the village. My treat, ok? Consider it my way of saying 'no hard feelings'."

There was no way that Naruto could turn down ramen. He smiled and quickly forgot about Ryu. "You got it! Let's go."

* * *

Japanese Terms

_Takoyaki _(たこ焼き), fried octopus dumplings, are a yummy Japanese snack that you can buy on the street. Check out Wikipedia for more information, or try Google for some mouth-watering pictures.

A _jou_ (杖) is a 1.28-meter wooden staff used as a weapon in some Japanese martial arts.

Techinques

_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu _– Shadow Clone Technique. B-Rank. This is Naruto's signature jutsu, where the user creates clones that are real, physical bodies.

_Nekko Shibaru Jutsu_ – Root Binding Technique (original). C-Rank. This technique causes small, flexible roots that are present in the ground to wrap around and immobilize the target.

_Hisui Kihanfuuin_ – Jade Bond-Seal (original). C-Rank. This sealing technique was developed for capturing kokyuuma. The user coats the kokyuuma in jade dust and then performs the seal. (More about the kokyuuma and the seal later in the story).

* * *

**Next chapter, Kakashi appears!**  



	2. Coincidences in Niokou

A/N: If you get a chance, check out the Japanese movie Tampopo. It's about love, food, and passion, and it's mostly about ramen...

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

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**Chapter 2 - Coincidences in Niokou**

"Hey, Nee-chan. You used ninjutsu. So, you're a ninja, right?" Naruto was talking though a mouth full of noodles.

"Yes, I am," Kodora answered. The ramen at the stand was good, and she was glad she had suggested it. She had been hungry, too.

"What hidden village are you from? You're not from Konoha."

"Well, Naruto-kun, I'm a tabiyaku ninja, an itinerant ninja. I wander from town to town, looking for work. I don't belong to any village," she stated simply. It was neither a confession, nor a warning. Most tabiyaku-nin were either wanted nuke-nin who abandoned their villages or random people with sub-par skills who fancied themselves ninja, but couldn't tell a kunai from a kitchen knife. The idea of tabiyaku-nin, loyal only to themselves, available for hire, did not have positive connotations, but any other term she could have used for her lifestyle was even less neutral. Plus, she really did wander. A lot. Luckily, Naruto had already decided she was decent, especially since she bought him ramen. His reaction was not at all negative.

"Don't belong to a village? Then, how did you become a ninja?"

"Hm. My family have been shinobi for generations. I guess it's the only thing I know how to do." She prevaricated on purpose.

"Mm. Mmm." Naruto nodded his head as if he understood. Kodora noticed he had finished his bowl, while she was only half done. She ordered him another. "So, Nee-chan, what are you doing here?"

She chuckled to herself. His questions were so simple, and he accepted the answers without suspicion. "Don't worry. I'm not an enemy of Konoha or anything. You remember that thing from back in the woods?" Naruto nodded. "Well, it's my job to track all of them down and capture them, so they don't hurt anybody. I tracked that last kokyuuma to this border village."

"There are more of those?" He remembered the squirming, oily creature and shuddered.

"Mm. But, not too many more. I'm not even sure there are more in this country." She hoped there were not any more in the country. There was a minute of silence as she slurped up some of the noodles. She ordered Naruto a third bowl, and intentionally segued to something more interesting, and less personal, for her. "How is Konoha these days? Everything still peaceful?"

"Peaceful? Mm, I guess so. Most of my missions have been boring." Naruto spoke while chewing on a slice of roasted pork.

"Ha-ha. That's a good thing, Naruto-kun. Appreciate those boring missions while you can! That's a good sign for people like me."

"People like you? You mean tabiyaku-nin?" Naruto looked puzzled. "Why are my boring missions good for you guys?"

"Because, lots of boring missions means that things are calm in Konoha. You see, Konoha_ is_ the strongest and most influential hidden village. Trouble in Konoha usually means trouble for the rest of us. And trouble may start small, but it can grow like a wildfire into war and suck all of us ninja into battle. Some ninja like that—fighting gives them a purpose. But other ninja see war as a threat to their loved ones, and they prefer peace, but those ninja fight, too, out of duty. No matter what type of ninja you are, when peace ends and war starts, we are all affected—something you should remember."

"So then, what type of ninja are you?"

_A simple question with a complicated answer._ "Hmmm. I'm not looking for validation. So, I guess I'm more the duty-type. Either way, I avoid conflicts, if I can." She grinned as if it was a joke. "Maybe I'm the cowardly type. What about you, Naruto-kun? What type are you?"

"I'm the type that's going to be acknowledged as the strongest ninja in the village. I'm going to become Hokage someday!" Typically energized by his dreams, Naruto was getting excited.

"Hokage, huh? Your last Hokage was a man with unbelievable strength and character. You think you can you surpass Yondaime-sama?" said Kodora.

"Of course! No problem!"

Kodora responded to Naruto's bold statement, "You think so? They say he died protecting the village, right? A Kage is the epitome of the duty-type. Protecting the entire village is the job of a Kage. That's a difficult job, and that's why only the strongest ninja become Kage. "

"That's why I have to get stronger," declared Naruto. Kodora smiled in response.

"That's obvious, but strength is only part of being a Kage. A Kage needs to be completely dedicated to his village. He should inspire other ninja to care for and protect the village, too. His compassion is just as important as strength. And if he has developed both, he will be considered a truly great shinobi, just like Yondaime-sama, and his village will be truly strong."

Naruto's brow furrowed a bit. It had been over a month ago, but something about what Kodora said reminded Naruto of Haku. Something about protecting one's precious people. "I think I can understand something like that…but, isn't a ninja a tool? A ninja's job is to fight. And that means hurting, even killing people. Isn't it hard to be compassionate too?"

"Hm. Good question. I think the key is why we fight. If you have to kill another person to protect someone weaker, that is practicing compassion, right? But, if you kill for your own gain, then that is not compassion. Both ways of killing require strength. Ninja skills themselves are not evil or good. It all depends on how you apply them."

Naruto was quiet. He was thinking.

"And I think you're already well on your way to becoming strong, and if you work hard, I'm sure one day, you'll make a great Hokage, Naruto-kun." Kodora looked at Naruto and smiled warmly. _As expected from the Leaf, they raise some good kids,_ she thought to herself.

They had both finished, and Kodora got out a couple bills to cover the meal when she froze. As best as she could, she had been tuning out the people around her. There were so many moving about, that she was in danger of overwhelming her senses, and she actively suppressed as much as possible. However, through the haze, she noticed a familiar presence. It had changed since the last time, but her keen sense easily recognized it. It was a distinctive presence.

At first, Kodora naively thought she was mistaken. It was far too random that they would be in the same border village like this. However, this was his country, not hers, and it made more sense for him to be here instead of her. Did he track her here? Not likely. She would have known if she was followed, and Konoha was too far away to dispatch someone that quickly.

He was already close and getting closer. She was in danger of being exposed. Tired from being in the crowded village, she did not think she could handle this. She felt an unbearable urge to escape back to the empty woods, where she could relax again. _Can I just ignore this? Maybe slip away unnoticed?_ He had approached her location and stopped. _Apparently not._

"Eh, Naruto. There you are. We're ready, so let's go," said a lazy voice from behind their backs.

_Naruto's jounin sensei? U__gh.__ So that's why he is here. He's not looking for me; this is just an unfortunate coincidence. _However, she was now in a very awkward place. He had seen her back and probably deduced she was a ninja from her equipment and dress. She would immediately be identified as a foreign ninja. He would ask Naruto, and Naruto would tell him about the crazy woman who bought him ramen. If not already, he would soon figure out who she was, and if she did not turn around and acknowledge him right now, it would only arouse suspicion. _I guess I will just try to exit as gracefully as possible from this situation…_

As carefully practiced since childhood, Kodora let her tension go and brought forth a carefree confidence that concealed her true thoughts and emotions. Professional ninja only let people see what they wanted them to see. That was a true mask. Kodora set the money down on the counter and picked up her jou, which she had left leaning against the stand while eating. As the end of the staff hit the ground, she slid off the stool. Her feet landed on each side of the jou, and she rested her hands on the pommel, leaning it away from her body slightly. She let her head and shoulders slouch down unthreateningly. As if she did not have a concern in the world, she turned her body just enough to see the young man who was waiting for Naruto. She looked at him from the corner of hers eyes and smiled politely.

"Kakashi-san. You've grown."

Before she had spoken, before she had even looked at him, Kakashi knew who she was. It had been over thirteen years, but his memory was sharp and his eye for detail was sharper. She was healthier now, and from her stance, gear, and cautiously guarded smile, Kakashi figured that she was working as a shinobi.

"So have you. Kodora."

Naruto looked back and forth between the two adults. "Hey, hey! You know Kakashi-sensei?"

Naruto was standing now, next to Kodora, and she glanced at him briefly, moving her head only slightly. She looked back at Kakashi while she spoke, still smiling nonchalantly, "Yeah. Something like that." Then, she straightened up, pretended to forget about Kakashi, and completely faced Naruto. _Too much tension for my comfort._ _Time to go. _"Thanks for the company Naruto-kun, but I should be on my way. Good luck with your mission."

"Thanks for the ramen, Nee-chan!" As Naruto ran toward Kakashi and his two genin teammates, Kodora looked back at the jounin and smiled more sincerely. Her smile elicited no reaction. The jounin gazed back blankly with his dark right eye while his expression revealed nothing, as expected from a ninja of his level. Without another word, Kodora turned, walked calmly down the street, and disappeared into the crowd.

_That's unexpected_, Kakashi thought._ I wonder if __this is something to be concerned about…_

**- - -**

Two hours later, Kodora had gotten far enough away from the village of Niokou to feel comfortable again. There were no people nearby, and she reveled in the wonderful feeling of isolation. She squatted down in a clearing and rested her forearms on her knees. It had not been simple, but she had made out well. She had reclaimed another piece of the Karabuta without anybody getting seriously hurt. The only problem was the Konoha ninja.

Naruto would not stir up any trouble for her. From what she could read, he will have already forgotten the details of their encounter and moved on to the next exciting event. He tended to live in the moment. On top of that, she had easily gained his trust, and he was a loyal person. He was not going to suggest Konoha track her down. Kakashi, on the other hand…

Well, Kakashi was a problem, simply because he knew. Moreover, she could not predict what he would do. He had been complicated, even as a teenager. If he was the same as he had been at thirteen, right now he would be mustering up an ANBU squad to confront her at some quiet locale far from civilization. Back then, she found him uptight and unable to accept things that did not fit into his system. However, children often outgrow such personality faults, and so she could not assume that he would react strictly by the rules. Unfortunately, she did not get enough impression back in Niokou to determine how much he had changed. She had intentionally avoided getting an impression.

However, some things do remain constant. She doubted that his intelligence or his analytical abilities had stagnated. He would be reviewing everything he could recall from thirteen years ago. He would weigh that against his observations from their meeting today. She had not revealed much, but not revealing is still a form of revealing. He would innocently query Naruto, though Naruto's information would be suspect, and he would guess at what she had been doing over the years. What kind of conclusion would he arrive at? He would conclude that she could be a threat, of course. She would, at a minimum, be an unknown and potentially dangerous factor. So what kind of confrontation should she expect?

_Relax._ Even if Konoha did decide to investigate her activities, she had done nothing wrong here. And Konoha would not extradite her to any place where she was wanted. She may be a foreign ninja walking freely within their country, but at most, they would ask what her business was, and if they did not like the answer, they would ask her to leave. Her business here was harmless enough. She might even be considered beneficial.

What really worried her was obvious—the things she didn't discuss with anyone and the events she tried to forget. The only people alive who knew were in Konoha. With Yondaime dead, and if the others had kept quiet, then there could be, at most, four people who knew. Sandaime, she knew, was still alive. And, coincidently, she had just seen one more of them, alive and well.

She might be worked up over nothing. Maybe the path she was on led straight out of the country. It was time to find out.

Kodora took a drawstring bag out of her pouch, opened it, and scattered the contents on the ground. The jade fragments of the Karabuta lay jumbled before her. She held her hand over them, and, stimulating them gently with chakra of her own, she woke them up. The hungry creature immediately absorbed her chakra and re-emitted it in its own, darker form of energy. As if possessed, the pieces snapped together, into a filigree sculpture of a pig about the size of a turnip. The pig had gaps in four places. She knew before that there were at least four more pieces to find—what she was interested in now was the direction the pig faced. The Karabuta glimmered, and the malicious energy stretched out from the sculpture, straining toward the closest missing piece, the closest kokyuuma. It wanted to be whole again. It wanted its power back.

Kodora's hopes sunk. The cursed pig was pointing deeper into Hi no Kuni. With a kunai, she scratched a line along that direction in the dirt. She released the Karabuta, picked up the fragments, and moved several paces perpendicular to the line she had drawn. In the new spot, she repeated the process, carving a second line into the dirt. After releasing it again, she scooped the fragments back up and returned them to her pouch.

She got up and backed away from the marks, eyeballing their angle and mentally triangulating toward the next target. By her rough estimation, the closet kokyuuma was indeed in Hi no Kuni. To wards the ocean. On the opposite side of Konoha. It would take her a couple days to travel there directly, more if she gave the hidden village a wide berth, and then it would take more time to track and corner the kokyuuma. She might be in the country for weeks. She sighed audibly, half-expecting the ANBU to debouch from the trees woods at any moment.

However, she had claimed to be a duty-type of ninja, and she was going to live up to that boast. She forced herself to swallow her misgivings and begin her journey into the heart of Hi no Kuni.

As she walked away, a long-beaked hoopoe perched on nearby ground and began singing its soft, three-syllable call. The bird was an auspicious sign, and she wished she were superstitious enough to find comfort in its arrival. But, maybe her luck would change. After all, these targets _moved_.

* * *

**What kind of history does the Copy Ninja have with the foreign kunoichi? Next chapter, Kodora and Kakashi face off!**  



	3. The Problem with Solo Missions

All active-duty Konoha ninja in current rotation, were out on assignment when the C-Rank request crossed the Hokage's desk. It was a low-risk, yet time-critical, mission, and the client was willing to pay extra for fast service. Considering it was a first-time request from potentially lucrative new client, Sandaime could not refuse. When the wealthy man's courier delivered the request, the Hokage accepted it heartily.

Sandaime then scrambled to find ninja that he could pull into a team for the mission. He considered police officers, retirees, even older academy students, but none of them were suited for fieldwork, and the rigmarole required to reassign them was painful. That was when an exhausted Kakashi walked into his office, along with Aoba and Genma, freshly back from an S-Rank mission, three days early. Sandaime did not even wait for the debriefing. He held up the new request, with a big, red "C" stamped at the top.

"I need this mission covered immediately. Unfortunately, the fee only covers the wages for one of you. Volunteers?" His response was the averted gaze of three jounin who took a sudden interest in the interior design of his office. After their recent travail, all three of them only wanted showers and beds.

Sandaime held the mission scroll out to the first jounin.

"Ooo…Sorry. My cat has an appointment at the veterinarian today," responded Aoba.

Sandaime looked at Aoba suspiciously. He pushed the scroll in Kakashi's direction.

"Mmmm…I promised my cousin I'd help him move."

Sandaime let a puff of smoke out of his pipe as he sighed. "Genma?"

"I just don't want to," he responded vapidly.

Sandaime pushed the scroll back to Kakashi. "Congratulations, Kakashi. Lamest excuse wins," he said.

"Eh?" was all that Kakashi could manage.

"At least Aoba has a cat," stated Sandaime coolly.

**Chapter 3 - The Problem with Solo Missions**

Hatake Kakashi jumped through the forest canopy. He wondered at his amazing ability to land himself a C-Rank mission. A solo C-Rank mission. Of course, Konoha had been very busy lately. No crises or anything, just an influx of low-rank missions. The Hokage had reduced team size temporarily in order to increase the number of teams available to cover missions. Naruto and Sasuke were off chopping firewood, and he believed Sakura went to a farming village with Ino to help decorate for a festival.

Kakashi smiled inwardly. Sandaime-sama certainly had a knack for pairing people and making dull D-Rank missions worthwhile lessons in teamwork. Still, the Copy Ninja had become accustomed to his genin students, and he would have liked to bring them along. At first, he had volunteered to head a rookie genin team merely because he needed a break from the constant S-Rank and A-Rank missions, if only for his own sanity. He thought it might be fun to train the next generation, instead of assassinating them. But every trio of academy graduates who came before him were worst than the last. No-talent, no-clue, no-use brats that had only known peaceful times and would probably piss their pants as soon as they got scratched by a kunai. They were lucky to grow up like that, but Kakashi could not bring himself to waste any effort on them.

Then came Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura, along with a special request from Sandaime-sama. _Please take these three kids seriously. They have great potential, but they need guidance. They could grow up to be great assets to Konoha. Or they could be great trouble. I'm relying on you, Kakashi, to determine which way they will go, and, if they're ready, start them on the proper path._ Given their unique situations, Kakashi had hopes for them, hopes quickly dashed by Naruto's inane babbling, Sasuke's insulting arrogance, and Sakura's pre-teen swooning. He had fully intended to fail all of them. However, he had promised the Hokage. He gave them a second chance, and though they had been slow at first, they finally showed a faint glimmer of worth. Faint.

Now, he was truly glad he had accepted them. Though the missions had, for the most part, been simple, it was pleasant to watch them grow. He was also getting his much-needed break with plenty of time to catch up on the finest the literary world had to offer. And though he would have preferred a mission with his new team, he was assigned this. But, as sacrifices go, this was nothing.

So, alone, tired, and anxious to be done with the bothersome assignment, Kakashi headed toward the low, wooded hills south of Konoha, where the Kataoka Clan lived. For generations, the Kataoka had been famous carpenters. They were not rich by any means, but they were a large, extended family that resided in a sprawling complex built with a skill that spoke of generations of fine craftsmanship. It was this elegant collection of buildings, with soaring roofs and intricate rafters, that Kakashi was going to infiltrate.

It was already early evening, giving him roughly eighteen more hours to complete his mission. The sun was low, probably setting in an hour. The Copy Ninja drew to a halt when the carmine shingles of the compound's rooftops came into view, nestled amongst the treetops. First, he would perform reconnaissance, to see what the Kataoka had in terms of security. He was not about to be unnecessarily careless, even on a simple assignment like this.

Merely another shadow of the dying daylight, Kakashi scaled the outer wall of the central, tallest building. He skulked along the roof, which was about two and a half stories high, until he could surreptitiously view the interior. The building's wings formed a wide square around a cobblestoned, sunken courtyard. Around the courtyard perimeter ran low decking with eaves from the roof flaring out for protection from inclement weather.

The courtyard was nearly empty. There were a couple of wooden lounge chairs scattered along the edges (which surely were expertly constructed) and an ornate wooden fountain bubbling water over miniature palmiped birds carved around the rim. The only people present in the courtyard gathered in a knot on the far side, casually sitting around the steps leading up to the engawa. They were mostly young children who squatted by the last step or dangled their feet off the edge of the deck. The children raptly lent their attention to the only adult in the group, who sat in the middle of steps. It appeared she was telling them a story. She also appeared to be someone that Kakashi knew.

_What? Kodora? Why is she here?_ Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

It had been almost a month since he saw her in that border village Niokou. He should have reported her back then, but he had let it go. Naruto had spoken with her, but, not being the most fastidious of ninjas, his narrative revolved around the fact that she liked ramen. Now, after thirteen and a half years, Kakashi spies her a second time, not buying ramen for his jinchuuriki student, but lounging around in the courtyard of the very family he was about to piss off. This could be a problem.

Down in the courtyard, the kunoichi suddenly broke off in the middle of her story. She carefully scanned the courtyard and the building, as if looking for something, or someone. _Did she detect my presence? Unlikely, but if she did, it appears she doesn't know exactly where I am._ To be safe, he slid back behind the peak of the roof, out of sight.

"Hey! Kakashi-san! What are you doing up there?" called a friendly voice from down in the courtyard.

_Damn. To be found and identified that easily, I must be getting rusty…_

Kakashi peered over the roof, down into the courtyard. Kodora stood at the bottom of the steps, looking directly at his location. When she saw his spiky white hair pop over the edge of the roof, she lifted her arm up high and waved at him, grinning. Kakashi was beginning to regret not reporting her the first time. Obviously friendly with the Kataoka family, she could directly interfere in his mission. Maybe they even hired Kodora. In that case, she had probably guessed why he was here, too. If that was true, he could not avoid her. He would have to confront her.

He sighed. With a Shunshin-no-Jutsu puff of smoke, Kakashi appeared in the courtyard. The eyes of the children who were milling about widened with amazement at his entrance. He stood slouched with his hands in his pockets, on the far side of the courtyard, face expressionless. Kodora stood with her elbows resting on the jou slung across her back, leaning over one leg. The two ninja sized up each other from across the distance as the low evening sun stretched their shadows long and distorted towards the back of the courtyard, two macroscians unmoving in the summer haze.

It was Kodora who spoke first. "So, Kakashi-san, what brings you here, to the Kataoka Clan residence?" The question sounded casual and conversational. Which meant she already knew the answer.

"Not much. Just looking for someone," Kakashi equivocated, sounding bored and uninterested.

"Oh? And who might you be looking for?" She was still wearing that inexplicable smile.

"No one important. Just a young lady."

"A young lady, huh? Hmm…" Kodora scratched her head absent-mindedly. "There are a lot of young ladies here. Is the one you're looking for special for some reason?"

Kakashi didn't move. "Yeah. Apparently, she's being held here. Made to marry some guy tomorrow."

"Let me think….Well, there _is_ a wedding tomorrow, but I don't think that bride-to-be is being held, technically." Kodora pronounced the last word slowing and deliberately, mocking the verbal dance they were engaged in.

"Is that so? My information says differently. Her father wants her back."

"He does? Well, I don't think she wants to go."

There was a moment of silence as the two ninja scrutinized each other for signs of backing down. The jounin was sure that this was going to break out into some kind of fight. Kakashi did not want to hurt the kunoichi, but it seemed that both of them took their work seriously. He could even believe that the young woman that he was assigned to retrieve really was marrying of her own will. From the start, he knew this was some kind of nonsensical family issue, but his mission was not to fix a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship. He was going to take the girl home, unconscious if need be, and she and her father could reconcile on their own time while he was at home. In bed. Sleeping.

Kakashi was annoyed to be in this position, facing another ninja during a C-Rank mission. He had seen cases like this before—where two parties had a dispute over something minor. Instead of working things out like adults, one side hires ninja. Then, the other side hires ninja. Things escalate, and before you know it, ninja end up dead. Over some stupid pride matter that just was not worth the life of a person. Life got way out of proportion sometimes.

He wondered how far Kodora would go.

Kodora was the first to break the tense silence. She no longer smiled. "It seems we're opposed, Kakashi-san."

And there it was, out in the open.

The children behind Kodora had intently watched the exchange, as if a dramatic action movie was unfolding before their eyes. "Are you guys gonna fight?" asked one of the grimier boys, his voice filled with expectation.

Kodora leaned her head back towards his direction, keeping her eyes on the jounin. "It looks like we might have to. I think you kids better go inside." The kids paused as the actuality sunk in. Then, hearing the warning in her voice, they quickly ran inside the doorway of the building behind them. Soon, several pairs of young eyes peered voyeuristically out the windows flanking the doorway.

Kakashi did not like where this was going at all. He did not expect her to be overly strong, but there were certain things to be wary of, especially with her. _I have to watch her eye. With no other ninja around, as long as it stays the same, things will not be complicated. She will not come at me with ninjutsu or genjutsu. It will have to be taij__utsu.__ And, she will probably use that jou. Shinobi who carry specialized weapons tend to rely on them, use them to compensate for weaknesses. She is probably trying to make up for her smaller frame. She needs leverage and reach, which that jou can give her__ Once I disarm her, I can overpower her. Sharingan? No, I'll avoid that for now. Save chakra. See if I need it after we start._

As he strategized, Kakashi began to see some opportunity in the fight. Ever since he had spotted her in Niokou, he had wondered how she had developed. On top of that, he had not fought anyone with good staff skills for a while, and if she was skilled with a jou, this would be good practice. Still, it would not be right for him to encourage this too much.

"Kodora, you know, we don't have to fight," he said.

"Kakashi-san, are you willing to leave empty-handed, then?" She was letting him know that she was not going to be the ninja who backs off.

Kakashi's response was a silent, lazy stare. He was letting her know that he felt the same way. A tired as he was, he had a mission to complete.

The tabiyaku-nin simply shrugged like there was nothing she could do about it. Then, without hesitation, she bent down slightly, grabbed the end of her jou with her hand, and ran at Kakashi.

_Making the f__irst move, huh?__ And using the jou, like I expected._ Kakashi did not react right away. He doubted she would simply barrel straight at him swinging, Naruto-style. He would wait to see her intentions.

He was not disappointed. Not far away from him, she leapt up and sideways into the air, tucking her knees in and flinging her body directly between the setting sun and Kakashi.

Kakashi followed the movement while she disappeared in the glare. _Using the sun as cover? She's obviously agile enough to jump like that,__ but th__at speed was mediocre. From there, she'll complete a partial somersault to redirect her momentum and attack me from above. _He calmly pulled out a kunai to parry the inevitable offensive strike. As he expected, she came out of the glare directly over him, dropping down with the jou held like a shinai. She planned to strike him from overhead, using gravity to strengthen the blow. _Not a good position for me to deflect or disarm._ Kakashi hunched down and pushed himself directly backwards, out of her range, where he would to wait for a better opportunity to engage.

As he slid backwards and watched her fall, he realized his mistake.

Kakashi felt a presence at his back. Thin arms snaked under his, and feminine hands clasped each other in front of his chest, forming a Hebi Seal. The Kodora in front of him flailed the ground hard with her jou, and disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving a lone kunai sticking out of the ground in her place.

_Ninjutsu!?_ He had made a serious misjudgment, and now he was in a vulnerable position. She was hugging him from behind, and he could feel her body pressed up against his back, her bent knee sidling his hip.

She leaned in, and her hot breath brushed his ear, "Not today, Kakashi."

_Shit. She must have peeled off a bunshin when I slipped behind the roof earlier. I've been talking to a clone this whole time. Not only that, but the real Kodora got behind me when I was distracted by the clone. The clone was slow, but she really must be quite fast. An intentional deception. And how the hell did she manage a bunshin?_

Kodora's grip was not strong, but Kakashi was squatting. From his position, his center of gravity was low, and he did not have room to maneuver—even if her grip was weak. He dropped the kunai and crossed his arms over hers, grasping her bandaged wrists firmly. Shifting his body down and pulling her forward, he tried to unbalance her. With her light body mass, he could easily throw her over his back a good distance. That would give him a chance to regroup.

But, before he completed the throw, she made two more hand seals. Kakashi's vision swam, and he completely lost his sense of balance.

_What…_ Kakashi did not even finish the thought before he slumped over in her arms, unconscious.

Kodora breathed a sigh of relief even as she struggled under the suddenly limp bulk of the famous Copy Ninja.

"Hey! You kids over there! Get me some help," she shouted toward a window full of miniature Peeping Toms. In a few minutes, a grown woman emerged and ran towards the two ninja, trailed by a group of curious, yet cautious, children.

"Onee-san, you said were going to fight him. That wasn't exciting at all. There's not even any blood," complained the same boy from before. He felt cheated. The 'fight' had lasted only ten seconds.

The tabiyaku-nin rolled her eyes at the child. "You are not paying me enough to fight this one."

"Is he that tough?" The child regarded the unconscious form of Kakashi dubiously.

"Yes he his. And I hear he cuts out and eats the tongues of little boys who insult him." The boy backed away a step, suddenly less bold. Kodora glanced up at the woman, who was also looking rather valetudinarian after hearing the last comment. "He needs to sleep this off somewhere. Can you help me carry him?" she asked.

"Yeah...I guess."

* * *

Japanese terms

An _engawa_ (縁側) is the wooden platform located on the outside of a traditional Japanese house.

A _shinai_ (竹刀) is a practice sword, usually made from bamboo.

Techniques

_Shunshin no Jutsu_ - Body Flicker Technique. D-Rank. This is the technique where a ninja moves quickly, usually using something like smoke, blowing leaves, or mist to mask thier arrival or departure. It gives the impression of sudden appearance or disappearance. Many ninja use this in the series, but Kakashi uses it frequently.

_Buki Bunshin no Jutsu_ – Weapon Clone Technique (original). D-Rank. The ninja transforms a weapon, such as a kunai or a shuriken, into a clone.

_Shichihai no Jutsu_ – Seven Pints Technique (original). D-Rank. There will be an explanation for this technique in the next chapter.

* * *

**What has happened to Kakashi? Next chapter, The Morning After...**  



	4. The Morning After

The two women had stretched Kakashi out on a fustian-upholstered sofa in one of the Kataoka family's offices. Kodora had already checked his pulse to ensure he was merely sleeping and not in any real distress. His sleep was so profound, that he was completely unaware of everything around him. _I might have overdone it_, Kodora silently commented to herself.

Next to the kunoichi stood the young lady who had caused of all this trouble. The pair was quiet, both staring down at the masked ninja, both struggling with reluctant feelings about the whole situation.

"Kozue-san," began Kodora gently, "your father must love you a great deal."

"He paid someone to kidnap me. Is that love?" retorted Kozue as she set her hands at her hips, arms akimbo.

Kodora regarded Kakashi again. "He went to this much trouble to bring you back home, hiring someone like this. Yes, he loves you. He just doesn't show it well."

"I don't care anymore. I want my own life."

Kodora sighed and turned to face Kozue, who looked like she was about to break out in tears. "Kozue-san, how old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"Is your father the only family you have?" asked Kodora.

"Yes. My mother passed away when I was young. My father—he never remarried."

Kodora eyes drifted back towards Kakashi, but she was not really looking at him. "I'm almost twenty-four," said Kodora, more to herself than to anyone. "My family died when I young."

Kozue did not know how to respond, or even if she should. The young kunoichi was wrapped in thought.

After another silent moment, Kodora lifted her chin up and stared straight ahead with a determined look on her face. "Your father should be here," she said flatly. With that, Kodora turned around and strode out of the room while Kozue confusedly watched her back.

**Chapter 4 – The Morning After**

Kakashi's throat was constricted and raw. He was only mildly awake, but he was acutely aware that something was wrong with his body. His eye cracked open to see wooden beams running the length of a plaster ceiling. For a moment, he was convinced that the room was moving on its own. He closed his eye and made sure that he was the one who was stationary. Muted tones of music oozed through the wall from somewhere far away in distance and spirit. A mosquito buzzed near his exposed ear.

With every heartbeat, his head throbbed.

He could not remember how he got there.

A door creaked open from somewhere past his head, the sound painfully scraping in his brain.

"Ah, you're awake," said a cheerful voice. A cheerful woman's voice. The voice of a woman he knew. It took a Herculean effort to remember her name. It was like lifting a dead cow off a diamond ring. He tried to form words and make them come out of his mouth, but not only were coherent sentences absent from his mind, but all the muscles in his body, included those used for speech, were committing mutiny on his command.

Kodora sat next to him on the sofa, her weight compressing the cushion and causing him to involuntarily slide towards her. Her hip touched his and stopped him from rolling completely onto the floor. She carried a tray, which she carefully set on the coffee table next to the couch.

"Well, Kakashi-san, you're too late. They're already married."

_Married?_ He vaguely remembered something about having to stop a marriage.

Not waiting for an acknowledgement, Kodora continued in her chipper tone that only served to make his head pound more. "But, I felt bad about you_ failing_ your mission and all, so, I worked things out between the families."

_Worked things out?_ He sluggishly followed along but did not really grasp the meaning.

"Yep. Everything is settled, and there's no need to kidnap anyone anymore. In fact, your client is here right now. Outside at the party. Drunk and dancing with the mother-in-law." She gave a conspiratorial grin, like a quidnunc gossiping about a scandalous affair. Kakashi finally managed to vocalize a faint groan that reminded Kodora about the tray on the table

"Oh, right. I brought you some things." She turned to the table and pointed out each item as she mentioned it. "There's some herbal tea, which should help with your headache, some okayu—I know you probably have no appetite, but you need to eat something," at the mention of food, Kakashi's stomach turned inside out, "and I suggest you drink a lot of water." To emphasize her point, she picked up the glass of water and set it unceremoniously next to his head. A full pitcher of water remained on the tray.

"I'll be right outside at the celebration, if you need anything. It's quite the hootenanny. If you feel up to it, you're welcome to join us. Oh, and bathroom's down the hall to the right."

She gave him another ingratiating smile before she rose and walked out the door.

Kakashi returned to staring at the slowing revolving ceiling.

**- - -**

Kodora started on her third tokkuri, pouring the clear liquid into her cup. She waved the wooden cup beneath her nose, savoring the crisp alcoholic aroma. _Nice party_, she thought silently as she sipped. She stretched out in a lounge chair at the edge of the courtyard. Most of the guests haphazardly twirled to folk music played by a lively ensemble at the front of the courtyard, rubicund cheeks spread in merry grins. Unleashed salukis and beagles bounded enthusiastically through the crowd. At the sides of the courtyard burned the last of the blessed tapers, ensuring prosperity for the new couple. The tabiyaku-nin may have sat apart from crowd, but she was fully absorbed in the joy of the chocolate-box celebration.

She drained the cup and set it next to the tokkuri on the tea table by her chair. Whether due to the warm sensations coming from the revelers or the warm sensation of inebriation, she felt relaxed, satisfied, and far away from her normal concerns. That might have been why she did not notice when Kakashi took to the lounge chair on the other side of the table. While reaching over to refill her cup, she spied him out the corner of her eye and flinched, nearly spilling sake all over the table. It was a very amateur reaction, but she had not sensed his arrival at all. Few people could sneak up on her unnoticed, even if she was tipsy. It was unnerving.

After regaining her composure, she held up the tokkuri in his direction. "Sake?" As revenge, she intentionally taunted his condition.

He lazily lolled his head to left, not even bothering to lift it off the back of the chair. With one blood-shot eye, he gave her a lugubrious look of such aversion that she thought she had just offered him raw slugs in sewage.

Feeling somewhat responsible for his condition, she rose and walked over to the catering table, laden with platters of roast meat and orzo, sautéed vegetables and baked sweet pastries. Past the bottle of spirits and the boiling samovars of tea, she reached for a pitcher and poured him a glass of cool water. Then, she strode back and stood to the side of his chair, holding out the glass unceremoniously. He accepted the offering gingerly, and Kodora stared at his gloved hands as they cupped the glass. However, he did not actually drink it. He just rested it in his lap, as if he did not have the energy to lift the glass to his face.

She sat back down to watch the crowd dance.

After several minutes, Kakashi spoke up in a rather strained, unamused voice. "What did you do to me?" he asked.

Kodora continued to watch the crowd as she responded innocently, "That? Oh, that was an original, Shichihai no Jutsu."

"Shichihai no Jutsu?"

"Mm. It turns some of the water in your bloodstream into alcohol. Like you've just downed seven cups of sake."

Kakashi let out a noisy breath through his mask. "So. I have a hangover then."

"Yeah... You've been out since yesterday. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to make you so sick. If I had known you were such a lightweight, I would have used three cups, instead of seven." She paused at the slight gibe. "It's a silly technique, anyway," she admitted dismissively.

"But used effectively."

She let out a sharp laugh. "You underestimated me, Kakashi-san. You let me attack first, and you didn't even try to use your Sharingan. I took advantage of that. That was all. But, that kind of advantage wouldn't last for more than a few seconds, and I did what I could to end it quickly. I'm not stupid enough to fight you for real. Not over something like this," she said while nodding her head at the crowd. "Heh. You've gained quite a reputation for yourself, Copy Ninja Kakashi." The moniker came off her lips slowly and playfully.

Kakashi ignored the teasing tone. Other things were bothering him more. "It appears you use ninjutsu now. The Shichihai and then that Bunshin you pulled off. And, that wasn't even a standard Bunshin—you used that kunai to build it." Another technique he hadn't seen before.

The young kunoichi sobered at the statement. Some of the mirth left her face. _Thus begins the real interrogation._ "I've worked hard to gain control over my kekkei genkai. You'll find you won't be able to influence me so easily this time." She knew her words would not satisfy his curiosity, but she would go no further than that. She picked her sake cup up and swallowed the contents.

Even with his questionable health, Kakashi heard her nuance of finality. He might have a hard time getting an explanation. However, he could not simply leave someone like her to wander around the country unchecked. Not after yesterday's show. His voice dipped low and serious, with an undertone of threat. "What are you doing in Hi no Kuni?"

"Personal business," she said flatly.

"What is your intention with Naruto?"

His concern surprised her. "Naruto? That blond genin? I had no idea he was your student. He got in my way, and I lectured him. He took it kind of personally, so I tried to cheer him up with lunch. Apparently, in Naruto's world, if you buy him ramen that makes you best friends. That was all. I like his energy, but he does tend to butt into things, huh?"

Kakashi mentally conceded that last point.

Three members of the wedding party approached the ninja, curtailing further conversation. Kodora rose to pay her respects to the new couple and the father of the bride. Kakashi declined to join the symposium, feeling his brain could not handle the sudden drop in blood pressure from standing.

"Congratulations," stated the tabiyaku-nin graciously. She bowed respectfully to the pair, but Kozue would not have it. She jumped forward and wrapped her arms around Kodora in an affectionate hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for everything. How can I ever repay you?" said the young bride while burying her face into the shoulder of the slightly taller ninja.

Kodora pulled out of the embrace and took Kozue's hands in hers. Even though she smiled affectionately at the other, there was a tint of sadness in her posture. "Just live a happy life, Kozue-san. That will be enough for me."

The inebriated large man standing next to the groom walked forward. Kakashi recognized his client from their meeting yesterday and felt minor embarrassment for ending up in such an indignant state. The father looked from Kodora to Kakashi and back. "I don't understand ninja at all. One minute you're trying to kill each other, and the next minute you're sharing sake," the man said in a deep, vibrant voice.

"Kind of like marriage, hm?" commented Kodora with a mock smile.

The big man let out a baritone chuckle. He then turned to the Copy Ninja's direction and spoke out, "Don't worry, Konoha, I'm still going to pay your fee. I'm supposed to be generous on the day of my only daughter's wedding, right? But you should thank your friend here."

Kakashi, however, did not feel very thankful. Yesterday, this man grimly expressed his absolute hatred of the Kataoka clan, and today, the he was happily dancing with the clan matriarch. The man's attitude was completely different, and it was not just the sake. _What did you do, Kodora?_

The risible new father-in-law turned back to Kodora, bowed down, and held out his hand. "May I have a dance from the second-most beautiful lady here?" He winked knowingly at his daughter as he made the little quip.

Kodora accepted, "I'd be honored, sir." She took his hand, and the two blended into the crowd. Kakashi stared after them for a bit.

Eventually, he looked over to her chair where her jou leaned against the armrest. It looked like black ironwood, a very dense wood, that was dyed to be as dark as its name suggested. At the top, a trio of glass charms hung from a hole drilled through the grip: a gold bead bearing the character for 'spirit', a silver 'memory' bead, and a garnet 'blood' bead. Kakashi did not recognize their significance, but noted the configuration in the back of his mind.

His eyes drifted down the length, and as he expected, there was a fine seam about three hand-widths from the top. The bottom of the jou was clad in lusterless metal for a short length. He had noticed the balance of the jou was off when she carried it in Niokou and when she used it yesterday. Its weight was not symmetrical like a true jou. It was a shikomizue—a sword concealed within a walking stick. Judging from the length of the hilt, the blade went full length down the shaft, but it would be a narrow blade, probably double-edged. A blade too light to spar with. A pointed, surgical blade. An assassin's blade.

Kakashi frowned under his mask. He was in no condition to deal with this now. He was hungover, and his alcohol-induced sleep had done nothing to relieve his exhaustion from that last S-Rank mission. This time, he would remember to report her presence to the Hokage and let Sandaime-sama decide how to proceed.

He dumped out the contents of the water glass and slipped it into his hip pouch.

He noticed a fidgety kid spying on him from behind another chair.

"What?" snapped Kakashi. He had run out of patience for the day.

The boy jumped. "Do you really cut out and eat kids' tongues?"

Kakashi put his aching head in his hand. "Sure," he mumbled, much to the boy's consternation.

While being whirled in circles by a tipsy old bear of a man, Kodora took a peak past the dancing Darby and Joans, towards Kakashi. Without any forewarning, he had vanished.

**- - -**

The sparrow lit upon the ledge outside of Kakashi's apartment and started singing. It was mid-morning, and Kakashi, still in bed, seriously considered impaling the little animal on a kunai. A good night of sleep had taken the edge off his hangover, but he needed more rest. He hoped this summons was only to discuss the Kodora problem and not to receive another time-critical mission. There were reasons ninja took breaks between missions. There were also reasons that solo missions were discouraged. He had recently been reminded of both.

It was another two hours before Kakashi finally made an appearance in the Hokage's Office. "Good afternoon, Hokage-sama."

"Took your time, eh, Kakashi?" said the old man between puffs on his pipe. The smoke curled around his head hypnotically.

"Sorry. I stopped to help a cute girl find her lost puppy."

Used to the excuses by now, Sandaime chose not to waste time castigating the tardy Copy Ninja. A folder lay on his desk, which the old ninja turned around and slid to the front. Kakashi picked it up and began reading the contents while the Hokage explained. "There have been reports of a wandering kunoichi within the borders of our country. Her purpose here is unclear, but she has gained a reputation in other countries. So, we have some concern."

Kakashi was immediately suspicious. "And what is this kunoichi's name?" he asked.

"We don't know yet, but in some places they call her the 'Jutsu Shoubainin'."

"Jutsu Shoubainin? Technique Trader?"

"Because she deals in techniques. Or so they say."

"Is she wanted anywhere?"

"Yes. In Kaminari no Kuni and several minor countries. Standard mercenary offenses. There are also a couple bounty offers. Reports say they have a hard time capturing her."

Kakashi reached the last page in the file, a grainy picture of the 'Shoubainin' taken from the back. Sandaime continued. "I'm assigning you a team to track her down. Identify who she is and why she is here. And, if she poses a threat, eliminate her. You're allowed to use whatever interrogation techniques seem appropriate."

"Did you read my report from the C-rank I just completed? I marked it Priority for Hokage Office review."

"Oh? I haven't seen it yet. Is it important? The client paid the fee, right? I'm still backed up with failure reports from other missions."

The jounin laid the file back on the desk. "I already know who this kunoichi is."

* * *

Japanese Terms

_Okayu_ (お粥) is soft-cooked rice, or rice porridge. This is rice cooked with a lot of water, and it's very easy on the stomach!

A _tokkuri_ (徳利) is a flask for serving sake, usually around 360 ml, and often with a narrowed neck.

A _shikomizue_ (仕込み杖) is a sword concealed in a cane or walking stick.

Although the word _shoubainin_ (商売人) means 'a trader, or merchant', depending on the context, it also can refer to a woman who works in the nightlife businesses, like a hostess, prostitute, or stripper.

* * *

**Is Kodora a ally or an enemy? And what will Konoha do about her? Next chapter, Kakashi's new mission!**


	5. Fight in the Forest

"I already know who this kunoichi is," said Kakashi.

Sandaime leaned back and took a long, thoughtful drag on his pipe. Kakashi took it as a sign to continue. "Remember how, right after the Third Secret World War, we were busy closing down a lot of criminal enterprises that had flourished due to the war."

Sandaime nodded.

"During one of those missions in Taki no Kuni, my team found a young girl, about ten years old? She had an odd kekkei genkai ability, and we brought her back to Konoha for medical treatment."

"Hmm. Yes, I seem to recall. That girl's name…Kodora. Are you saying that this Shoubainin is that girl?" The Hokage picked up the folder and thumbed to the photo, studying it carefully. "I can't imagine that girl would grow up to become a threat to Konoha."

"Neither can I, but after such a long time…"

"Anything is possible." Sandaime puffed again. "Kakashi, I'm changing your mission objectives. I want to talk to this kunoichi in person. Find her, and bring her back to Konoha. And, remember, most of that information about her is classified, and the only people in Konoha who know about it are in this office right now. Can you handle this mission alone?"

Thanks to his souvenir from the party, which should have her scent all over it, Kakashi knew finding her would be easy. However, he also remembered his other souvenir, a pertinacious hangover. Bringing her back might be difficult, if she decided not to come.

"Sure. No problem." Kakashi turned to leave.

"Oh, and Kakashi,"

"Mm?"

"If you can, get a sense of her skill level, will you?"

"Sure," muttered the laconic ninja.

**Chapter 5 – Fight in the Forest**

Odors of cedar and spruce wafted by Kodora's nose as she slept. It was late afternoon in the woods of Hi no Kuni, and she was dozing peacefully with her back against one of the country's exquisite tree trunks. Next to her, on the mossy soil between the roots, lay her pack. Dreams escaped the sleeping ninja at the moment. Her breathing was rhythmic and her body still.

However, when three shuriken flew spinning from the shadows, they did not embed themselves in the still body of a sleeping ninja but had to settle for the bark of one exquisite tree trunk. Kakashi dropped into the clearing in front of the newly impaled tree. She could indeed move fast, like he suspected. And, like a real ninja, she wasn't caught off guard by mere sleep. He grinned slightly under his mask.

"I didn't peg you as the revenge type, Kakashi-san." Kodora was leaning up against the side one of the other trees. She had her arms crossed across her chest, her head hung forward, and her eyes closed. It was as if she had gone from napping sitting down to napping standing up.

"We all have our dark side."

Kodora snorted at the evasive response. "Didn't I apologize?"

"Yes, but it was a little insincere. And there's also the pride issue…"

"Pride's a dangerous thing for a ninja."

"So's a reputation, 'Jutsu Shoubainin'." He imitated her tone from when she had teased him with his own nickname back at the Kataoka wedding.

She let out a single laugh, her eyes still closed and her head hanging down. "So you found out, hmm. I didn't encourage that, you know."

"Still, we can't let someone like that infiltrate our peaceful country, mm?"

_He came alone. Then, he's not here to run me out of Hi no Kuni. He means to test me, _thought Kodora. _He wants me to use ninjutsu again. Or my kekkei genkai._ She was annoyed. Not only did he disturb her nap, but now he wanted to fight unnecessarily. _Two can play at this game. I'll let him see a little taijutsu._

Her movement was explosively fast. One instant she was leaning against the tree, and the next instant she had nearly hit Kakashi's kidney with a side jab from her hand. Kakashi managed to block it at the last moment, brushing the stroke off, but he was taken aback by the swiftness of her approach. He wondered if he might actually have to take this seriously.

Kodora spun out from him and lowered her body. She yawed to one side and lifted her arm slightly, hoping the motion would distract her opponent from the second, true attack. Continuing in the spin, she threw out a leg, aiming for the side of his knee. Kakashi recognized the feint and anticipated the kick by pivoting his knee back to safety, and, catching her incoming leg with the crook of his foot, he pushed the leg up and around in a motion meant to unbalance and throw her to the ground.

However, she grasped his intention and countered. She planted her hand firmly on the ground and let him push her leg up. The rotation of the kick continued through her body, and she went up on the one hand, twisting and bringing her legs smoothly over her head and back down to the side. It was a move requiring fluid flexibility, a graceful capoeira dance. Kakashi noted it well.

But, she wasn't about to pause for a breath. He wanted a demonstration after all. Already low to the ground, she rolled to the side and out, increasing the distance between them. She came out of the roll and immediately launched herself off the ground though a half-pike, arcing over her opponent's head, where she was poised to connect to the base of his skull with her shin.

And she came awfully close to connecting. Too close for Kakashi's comfort. He ducked forward, only to feel her calf brush the back of his head, nearly pulling off his hitai-ate.

From just the three advances, Kakashi easily recognized her taijutsu as Hyakuken-Ryuu Taijutsu. The circular motion, the feint, and the attacks points gave it away. Hyakuken was a popular style, with many variations practiced in the shinobi countries. Even Gai had incorporated techniques into his own, syncretic style of taijutsu. It was a style well suited to her agility and speed, but Kakashi had confronted many Hyakuken users, and, as a result, was confident in his ability to counter the attacks. The problem here was that crazy speed. Not at Gai's level, but damn close.

If this kept up, she would eventually land a critical blow.

And Kakashi didn't know how long she could keep up that high-energy style of taijutsu. What kind of stamina did she have? He needed help to deal with the speed, now. He lifted his hand up to his hitai-ate, when someone else pulled his arm back down.

Kodora had stopped completely, lunging forward with a firm grip on his arm right above the elbow. Her head was next to his shoulder, facing the opposite direction.

"If you use yours, I'll use mine. Then this becomes serious." She doubted he would call the bluff.

"You're too fast."

"Then I guess you will have to slow me down," she said coyly. She let go and swung out into a wider circle away from Kakashi. He, however, took her statement literally.

Kakashi made a few hand seals and spun around as he sent forth a liquid stream from his mouth that coated the ground around him for several meters. The next step that Kodora took was onto this wet ground. Immediately, she knew something was wrong.

The ground was sticky.

Whatever technique Kakashi had used, the ground was sticky enough to slow her down, but not too sticky to walk on. _Copied over 1000 techniques, huh? I'm sure one of those techniques cou__ld completely floor me, but__, he picks some genin-level jutsu that does exactly what I just dared him to do. He's toying with me—not taking me seriously. This is irritating. Now I really want to take him down._

She continued to come at him anyway. The stickiness would impede her movement on the ground, but she could still strike out with her limbs at the same speed. However, airborne attacks would be limited; she would not get any useful height when jumping off this sticky ground. Evasion would be hampered too, considering a roll or a flip on this ground would transfer the adhesive substance to undesirable parts of the body.

Stepping in close, she pivoted and brought her elbow up to drive it under his chin. The unnatural tackiness was throwing the coordination off for all her techniques. Kakashi swept his own elbow up, pushing hers around and finishing it off with a taunting poke in her side, just to let her know she had given him an opening.

_Irritating._

Instinctively, she gave a push with her foot, which should have sent her sliding out from his reach, but instead she nearly toppled over when her other foot refused to scrape over the sticky soil. _Ugh_. Slightly embarrassed, she moved in to strike at his solar plexus with her heel, planning to feint and go for the neck. Kakashi detected the feint, again, and instead of bending over to protect his solar plexus, he pressed her foot back down before it was anywhere near his neck.

The observant jounin had almost completely analyzed her ability by now. She was good, but no Hyakuken master. Without her speed, he would downgrade her to average. Her movements contained too much extraneous motion, wasting stamina and giving away her intentions. The ninjutsu he had used was causing her problems—she had not adapted well to the new situation. Additionally, she was only going after Tier 1, 2, and 3 attack zones, the places where weak strikes can inflict maximum damage. She was totally ignoring the Tier 4 and 5 zones, which require stronger strikes.

Considering Kakashi was keeping a reactive defense stance, that could only mean that she could not deliver a powerful strike.

It wasn't surprising, when Kakashi thought about it. She had a slender frame without much bulk. Still, he knew plenty of slender shinobi who could snap your leg in two with a punch. Of course, her childhood may have stunted her physical development. That kind of treatment can have long-lasting effects.

He came up with a little test to give her on her next attempt.

That attempt came rather soon. After rotating away from the last block, she had stepped behind him. Her next strike was aiming for his diaphragm, which he easily blocked with a downward brush of his arm.

Then, he swung his opposite fist around, directly towards her face. It was his first offensive move, and she had two choices for countering. She could catch it directly, which requires a moderate amount of strength, but would leave his armpit, a Tier 2 point, completely open. Or, she could redirect the punch with a back-hand brush which uses less power, but allows him to follow up with any number of Hyakuken attacks. The correct choice is clear, unless one doesn't have the physical power to block the punch directly.

She slipped the back of her hand along his forearm, diverting the punch down and inward. It was the second blocking option.

She spun out from him, back-flipped twice, and landed in a squat on the side of tree trunk, holding herself there with chakra. It was second time she had paused during the fight.

_Shit._ She thought silently. _He's completely negated my speed, and that last stupid stunt he pulled…testing my strength. H__e's figured out my weakest point in taijutsu.__ On top of that, he obviously knows Hyakuken. Probably copied it from somewhere. I can't keep going like this. He's just defending, while I exert three times the stamina to attack._

The flummery of their fight was not lost on Kodora. He wanted her to show off her best talents—that was his goal. She wanted to reveal as little as possible. He kept an exclusively defensive stance. They both held back significantly due to silly self-imposed limits, and it dawned on her that she didn't even know how far his abilities had developed. What she should do is merely refuse to fight any further. But, how would he react?

And, she really wanted to take that smug ninja down.

It was situations like this where her kekkei genkai could provide her exactly what she needed. She was struggling, fighting someone as good as Kakashi half-aware like this. But releasing it would only be giving in to him, and with him, there was no chance of using it surreptitiously. Of course, if this fight continued much longer, she might not be able to hold it back, regardless.

From his island of dry dirt surrounded by a sea of stickiness, Kakashi watched the kunoichi crouching on the side of the tree. She was staring at the ground at the tree base, disregarding him for the moment. _Probably trying to come up with a new strategy._ He waited patiently, noting how she wasn't tired at all, just a little frustrated. _Stamina must be decent, but I think she realized that I tested her strength. She's shown her speed an__d flexibility within Hyakuken-Ryuu, and she knows she can't get me with it.__ Come on, show me something new, Kodora._

Kodora was ready. She had a plan.

Kakashi calmly tracked Kodora's next approach. She sprung off the tree and circled in on his position, her speed held in check by the sticky ground. It looked like Hyakuken again, and Kakashi was slightly disappointed. He had expected her to use a ninjutsu counter or maybe draw her jou. When she attempted an arm strike to his temple, he casually brought up his own arm in a simple push-block.

His surprise came when she slid her striking arm down his and grasped his hand in hers. In an angular, linear motion that was completely alien to the philosophy of Hyakuken, she stepped past him as she wrapped her other hand loosely around his wrist. With the impromptu handshake, she pulled his arm down and twisted his hand mildly, causing his forearm muscles to flex as she ran her other hand up under his sleeve. The positions of the muscles, as felt by her fingers, guided her thumb to the trigger point. _Here's something you haven't seen before, Kakashi_. She palpated the point.

Numbness exploded from Kakashi's elbow and sensation vanished all the way from his fingertips to his shoulder._ What the Hell?_

His counterattack occurred instinctively. He reeled around, and, with his unaffected arm, aimed for his assailant. Kodora was close in, but she foresaw such a response. To evade, she stepped back, but the sticky ground retarded her movement and prevented her from dodging his blow completely. Kakashi connected hard just below her collarbone.

She immediately cleared the area, flipping back onto the same tree for her third pause of the fight.

Kakashi rubbed his numbed arm. He did not quite understand what had happened. Kodora watched, amused and rubbing her own injury gently. _Hmph. Like I thought, he's never seen Shoushishu-Ryuu__1__. That art originated too far away from here. Not to mention, it's nearly impossible to defend against if you haven't seen it before. But, that trigger __point's effect won't last forever.__ I had better end this quickly._

Pushing off the tree, she lunged at a slightly bewildered Kakashi. When in range, she drew her jou, and, before he completely pulled his injured arm to safety, she had the jou wedged between his upper arm and his rib cage. A quick flip of the weapon, and she had the whole arm painfully locked up. It would be enough to force him to the ground.

But, Kakashi, being Kakashi, had shifted minutely during the technique, and his arm was actually ninety percent locked up. Ten percent was all he needed.

With an unexpected flex of the numb arm, the jou slithered loose, and Kakashi cast it straight into the air above the pair of ninja, spinning end over end. Kodora, faced with the humiliating prospect of having her taller opponent gain her weapon, leapt straight up to catch it. While in the air, in one fluid movement, she sleeved the jou and drew several kunai.

Kakashi dove across the sticky ground as kunai skewered the ground right behind his steps. His opponent had forced him out of the safety of his sticky field, and he realized that he was now at the undesirable mercy of Kodora's full-speed attacks.

The kunoichi had landed at the center of the field and was hurling across the sticky part at Kakashi. She hit the outside border of the stickiness and nearly vanished with the sudden uptake in speed. Even without Sharingan, Kakashi still managed to anticipate. He caught his good arm around her waist and swung her to his opposite side, an easy technique to use on someone that light, and even better, it gave him a clearance to take back the middle of the sticky field, which he did without hesitation.

For a passing moment, the two stood there, Kakashi in the middle and Kodora on the edge, facing each other. The moment was so ephemeral that an observer might not have noticed, but to someone whose perception of time is distorted from the adrenalin of battle, that moment was an eternity. Kakashi searched her face for clues, but she focused her gaze somewhere near his chin. The distance between them was unfathomable.

Kodora closed that distance with blinding speed.

The kunoichi avoided the sticky mess by stepping on the ends of the kunai she had thrown down earlier. Not expecting her to cross at that speed, the jounin was caught off guard. In that moment of surprise, she managed to pull the numb arm of the Konoha-nin around her shoulder, pivot while thrusting her hip into his abdomen, and fling him completely over the sticky field in the direction she had come from.

Without slowing, she pivoted around again, ran back across on top of the kunai, and had Kakashi pinned to the ground before he could recover from the throw.

It was a good pin, thought Kakashi. Kodora's knee pressed into his groin, and his numb hand was wedged firmly under her other leg. In her right hand, she had drawn the jou and forced his uninjured arm down with its hilt while pushing the other end painfully under the right ridge of his jaw, driving his head to the side. Her left hand was splayed on the ground right beneath his armpit, providing a grounding point for controlling the whole pin.

Kakashi was quite impressed. Kunoichi usually don't execute pins well. The training involves, frankly, a lot of groping and close body contact. There are no off-limit areas, and most kunoichi learn the minimal techniques and never practice them again. And here, this kunoichi had just demonstrated a perfect three-point pin. She had even incorporated a weapon to create an even more submissive position. Yes, he was completely immobilized.

Well, at least, his Kage Bunshin was.

The cold steel tip of a kunai tickled Kodora between her shoulder blades, but she was not laughing.

"Nice form," said Kakashi from behind her.

Kodora leaned in towards the clone's head, until her face was only a few centimeters away. She stared penetratingly into its grey-black eye, letting the breath from her mouth waft against its masked cheek. When completing the throw, she had turned around for a split-second after letting go. She figured that was when Kakashi cloned himself. His jutsu must be extremely fast, but she had known something was wrong as soon as she reached the edge of the sticky field. "Do you honestly think I can't tell the difference between a clone and the real thing?" She leaned in closer, speaking in a husky voice as much to the clone as to the man behind her. "It's the eyes—they're all wrong."

_The eyes?_ An interesting theory popped into Kakashi's mind.

_Throughout this entire fight, she has not once looked me directly in the eye._

Kodora dug her knee into the clone's groin, until it dispersed into smoke.

_At the Kataoka compound, I was too hungover to notice, but we never made eye contact, in the office nor at the party._

With the clone gone, she dropped down about 12 centimeters, away from Kakashi's kunai and into the smoke cloud.

_And during the fight there, the only time we made eye contact was when I looked up at her clone. When we were facing off in the courtyard, she was so far away that she could have been looking slightly off without me noticing._

She rolled to her right, the only direction she could go to escape a stabbing by the kunai.

_In Niokou, she looked me in the eye once. Since then, she has imperceptibly and skillfully averted her gaze at every moment._

She was rising out of the roll, but Kakashi was already there. Her grabbed her head by the chin and forced her face up to his, where he stared directly into her pale blue left eye with his dark grey right eye.

He was met with a violent, involuntary flinch as she dropped her jou and desperately pushed him away from her. Letting out a groan of agony, she clenched her eyes shut and stumbled backwards, where she tripped over a tree root and tumbled ungracefully to the ground onto her butt. Her face contorted into a pained grimace and she clutched at her left eye with her hand, not even attempting to get up.

"Argh…" She sucked in a breath through her tensed jaw and swayed on the ground. "Damn you." Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the whole scene with detached fascination.

While Kodora's left eye stayed compressed under her palm, her right one snapped open and glared up at Kakashi vehemently, not trying to avoid eye contact at all. "I'm done with this game. You don't play fair," she accused. Then, she finally pulled her hand away from her face, where Kakashi could see that her left eye, still tightly closed, was watering significantly, leaving tears smeared all over her cheek.

When she did manage to crack the eyelid, an unmistakably red iris peered out from underneath.

Sharingan.

She twitched and quickly shut it again Slowly, she adjusted to the strange vision, and after a series of squinting, blinking, and rubbing motions she could hold both eyes half-open at the same time, though the corner of her left eye keep convulsing with tics.

"Bastard. Why did you have to go and do that?" she asked Kakashi, who was actually smugly amused by the whole performance. Apparently, he felt no sympathy for someone who was suffering.

"Mm? I had to make sure you were you," he stated blankly.

"Well, I am me, I assure you. And that was a dirty trick."

"Maybe. But I thought you had control over it, now. At least, that's what you said."

"Pft. What do you want, Kakashi?" She let the exasperation she was feeling creep into her voice.

"I don't want anything. Hokage-sama would like to speak with you."

"A summons? For what?" Kodora eyed the Konoha-nin suspiciously, and he felt something uncomfortable in her gaze.

"I don't know."

"Am I in trouble?" she asked, still emitting that gaze. Kakashi wondered if it was the mismatched eyes giving him the creepy sensation, if that was how other ninja felt when he stared at them.

Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe."

"And if I refuse?"

"Not a wise idea."

She broke the gaze and mulled over her situation. "Hmph. Fine. I'll go," she spat, almost childishly. She closed her eyes again and rubbed her brow with her fingertips like she was trying to eliminate a headache. When she reopened her eyes, which seemed to be suffering less, she kept her fingers splayed across her brow. "You go on ahead. I'll catch up in a few minutes."

Kakashi raised a doubtful eyebrow at the statement. This was no cookie-cutter kunoichi. He simply did not trust her enough to do that. "I'm here to escort you."

Kodora followed his reluctance. She explained, "I am _not _traveling anywhere like this. I need to get rid of this eye, and I can't do that, if you're around. So, please, just give me some space. I promise I'll follow." There was no humor, just a quiet plea for understanding.

"All right, then." The other ninja nodded imperceptibly and vanished. He didn't need to insist; he figured he could track her down again if necessary.

* * *

Terms

_Taki no Kuni_ (滝の国) is the Waterfall Country.

Techniques

_Hyakuken-Ryuu_ - Hundred Spheres Style (Original). A high-energy, striking style of taijutsu.

_Shoushishu-Ryuu_ - Blue Death Hand Style (Original). A form of taijutsu that makes heavy use of pressure points.

_Mochi Mizutamari no Jutsu_ - Sticky-Rice Puddle Technique (Original). C-Rank. Kakashi used this technique to leave a sticky coating on the ground.

* * *

**The fight ends in Kakashi's favor! But what exactly _is_ Kodora's kekkei genkai? Find out, next chapter...**


	6. Discourse by Fire

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 6 – Discourse by Fire**

Twenty minutes later, while Kakashi casually wound his way through the trees of Konoha, he was still waiting for Kodora to arrive. Superficially, his slower-than-normal pace might be seen as polite, meant to make it easy for the kunoichi to catch up once she was ready. But, in truth, he was carefully tracking his speed and distance, so that he could estimate the minimum time and space it took for Kodora to recover from her kekkei genkai's effect. As requested by the Hokage, he had parsed her skills during their friendly battle, but he needed more information on her kekkei genkai for a real evaluation.

Eventually, Kakashi detected the presence of the other ninja closing the gap. _Good, she came after all._

He glanced back and confirmed that was finally right behind him. The Sharingan eye that had so disturbed her had reverted to its original mundane blue color. However, she barely acknowledged him, having retreated somewhere distant, mentally. Kakashi left her to her own solitude.

Abruptly, a female green pheasant burst from the dense bushes that covered the ground and flapped its wings in a desperate attempt to flee from the two intruders. A small kunai flew past Kakashi's head and lodged itself in the side of a the mottled bird. It fell back to ground, motionless. Kakashi stopped and looked at Kodora questioningly.

"Dinner," she muttered as she jumped off the tree limb and retrieved her kill.

"Dinner?" called Kakashi after her.

"It's another eight hours to Konoha—six if we hurry. We won't make it by nightfall," she called back while she took out some wire and hung the bird upside down from a branch. After she yanked out the kunai, she cut the bird's neck, and blood started to drain onto the ground.

"Yeah, but—"

"I'm sure you're prepared, but I don't carry rations. Stay there a second. This is a good season." She disappeared into the thicket and, after a few minutes, reemerged with five eggs palmed in one hand. The eggs were shaped just like chicken eggs, but smaller and brown. She pulled an emerald-green furoshiki out of her pack and tied the eggs up gently in the cloth. "I'll be done in ten minutes."

Reaching behind, into his hip pouch, Kakashi pulled out a book and started reading. Though he thought it odd to rely on foraging for food, he could understand her choice. Pheasant and eggs were a veritable ambrosia compared to the insects and worms that he had eaten for sustenance in many grim situations. Occasionally, Kakashi glanced at the strange woman as she field-dressed the bird with cold efficiency.

The tabiyaku-nin deftly plucked a line of feathers along the belly of the unfortunate animal as it dripped the last of its blood. Satisfied, she grasped it under the wings, turned it right-side up, and slit the bird from tail to breastbone. Then, reaching into the abdomen, she gave a sharp tug and eviscerated the bird with one hand. As she held the pile of innards in her hand and left the pheasant dangling by the legs again, she cut away the heart, liver, and gizzard. The rest of the entrails slid off her hand and plopped wetly on the ground. With another square furoshiki, she tied up the giblets.

"Almost done," she remarked as she cut the bird down. With a quick snap and yank of the neck, she separated the head and dropped it to the forest floor, alongside the rest of the offal. Then she disappeared back through the brush, presumably to clean up in the small stream running there.

When she returned, the carcass was slung over her shoulder by the wire around its feet. "Let's go," she told Kakashi.

They silently traveled another two hours before Kakashi finally called a halt for the night. He chose a small clearing safely sheltered by mature oak trees. After setting their packs down, Kodora yawned and absently asked him, "You hungry?"

Noting that the kunoichi had snared enough food for one and a half people, Kakashi guessed she was offering to share. He was hungry, but it was standard ninja practice to refuse such offers to avoid poison and drugs. "Nah."

The young woman eyed him for a minute, and then said offhand, "Don't lie about pointless things. For that, you get plucking duty." She tossed the pheasant over to a mildly perplexed Kakashi. "And start a fire, too. I'll be back in bit," she said brusquely.

_She's a bit bossy,_ thought the jounin to himself as she wandered off. Regardless, he sat down and started plucking at the feathers.

By the time Kodora wandered back, Kakashi was sitting by a healthy campfire, holding a naked bird, and reading a worn book. The kunoichi actually smiled at the curious sight and began to feel less hostile towards him, though she was still mad about losing their fight. She down laid her bounty—a collection of roots, mushrooms, and herbs—and motioned for Kakashi to toss her the pheasant. A quick sear in the fire to burn the pinfeathers off, and she had a bird ready for stuffing.

Everything she had gathered went in the cavity, including the eggs and giblets. She tied the gaps with wires and hung the bricolage over the fire from a tree branch, where it could roast in peace.

The slender kunoichi leaned back against a tree trunk to resume her nap, when a twinge near her shoulder reminded her of the blow Kakashi landed. She rummaged in her pack and located a tin containing a cerise ointment. After pulling her shirt collar and underclothes out of the way, she belatedly rubbed the sassafras-scented unguent into the bruise that had blossomed.

"Sorry," said Kakashi, not even looking up from the paragraphs that described a hilarious predicament involving several dished of pudding.

"It's nothing." It really was nothing. She put the tin away and closed her eyes to rest.

Minutes of silence slid by as the only sound came from the crackling fire.

"My arm is fine now," he informed her, still reading.

"I know," she replied, impassive.

More silence. A turn of a page.

"That was an interesting technique."

Kodora did not respond. She was not going to discuss her techniques with him. Instead, she got up and fussed with the roasting animal, making sure it would cook thoroughly, and then sat back down to nap. After some time, she rose again and cut the pheasant down. With a clean kunai, she split it in two and portioned out the vegetables, eggs, and giblets. She walked over to Kakashi, who accepted his half wordlessly but did not actually start to eat. The jounin kept quietly reading his book.

The woman seated herself on the opposite side of the fire and started picking at her meal with the kunai. She observed him through the flames while she ate.

Kakashi had a dilemma. He doubted she had poisoned or drugged the food, but he still had not intended to eat in front of her—more to the point, he had not intended to pull down his mask. That was something that nowadays, he did sparingly and only in the company of other Konoha residents. His stomach, however, more of an intrepid gastronome than he, did not respect his jurisprudential principles. It only respected the appetizing aroma coming off the hot food.

"Don't worry about it," she managed through a mouthful.

"About what?" he asked.

"Your mask. I really don't care what you look like." _You try so hard to be laid-back now, but that uptight 13-year old keeps cropping up, doesn't he Kakashi?_ "Besides, my feelings will be hurt if you don't eat."

Even without the touch of sarcasm, the handful of words had successfully made him feel foolish. She had spoken directly to his internal debate. He sighed, pulled down his mask, and began to eat with his own kunai. It was delicious. The meat was not dry or gamy. The starchy roots were soft and moist. Everything smelled perfectly of leeks, thyme, and wood sorrel. He was impressed.

"This is really good. Where did you learn to do this?"

Kodora smiled. It was a rare moment of honest sincerity from Hatake Kakashi, and, feeling nourished and less grouchy, she responded in kind. "Since I left Konoha, I've been on my own. Whenever I met people with useful skills, I learned as much from them as possible. Some of those people were experts at survival, and considering how much time I spend in between villages, I've become adept at wilderness cuisine."

The Copy-Nin ate some more, agreeing with her silently. "So then, where _have_ you been?"

"I've been wandering," she explained between bites. The question was harmless enough.

"The whole time?" He found it surprising that someone would be homeless for that long. Plus, she had been so young when she left. "What is the longest that you stayed in the same place?"

She thought for a moment. "Hmm…maybe six months."

"Six months is not long. I've been deployed for more than that." He took another bite. "What were you doing there?"

"Well, I found a teacher that I liked."

"If you liked the teacher, then why did you leave?"

She quietly chewed at a mushroom, wrapped up in her own nostalgia for a moment. "It's a long story."

"It's a long night." Kakashi was curious.

"It's a long, _boring_ story. It would only serve to put you to sleep early," she joked. "How about you, Kakashi-san? How have you fared?"

"Me? Fine, I guess. I'm not dead, yet."

"An impressive accomplishment—not dying, that is."

"Many shinobi would think so," he confessed.

Kodora threw the remnants of her meal into the fire. It was a good meal and she was sated. She hoped the fullness would help her sleep despite her anxiety about returning to Konoha after so long. Pulling her bedroll from her pack and unfurling it, she lay down supine with her pack serving as a makeshift pillow. The fire had calmed down, and the quarter-moon peeked through the interstices of the oak branches above. She rolled on her side, propping herself on her elbow, and looked at Kakashi, who was still eating. Under his mask, he was, as she had suspected, a handsome young man. His features were boyish and rather disarming. They spoke neither of his formidable abilities nor his vast experience. However, it was no lie when she stated that she didn't care what he looked like. Her impressions of people went far beyond appearance.

He glanced up, and saw her looking at him. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Konoha—has it changed much?"

_Ah, she's nervous about it._ "You've changed more, Kodora" he answered.

"I haven't changed as much as you think."

_Somehow, I doubt that._ "But, after being in so many foreign places, it would be impossible for Konoha to look the same to you."

"True." The tabiyaku-nin rolled on her back again and studied the tree branches. Kakashi finished his portion of the meal and pulled his mask back up. The familiar comfort of concealment relaxed him. He returned to his book and read by the dying firelight.

The jounin kept reading as he talked. "So, how far have you gone?"

"Eh?" she asked drowsily.

"What countries have you been through?"

"Oh. Hmm…all five shinobi countries, and many minor countries, too. Farthest north has been Yuki no Kuni. East, the Uma-Jima Hegemony. South, probably Kazan no Kuni. And west…I got as far as the Koukouya. Heh. I barely got out of there alive."

Kakashi considered himself nonpareil with respect to travel, especially taking into account missions from his ANBU days. He had been to the brumal Yuki no Kuni, but otherwise, her bicoastal roaming had taken her farther than he had ever been. She really had wandered. He recalled the brief conversation they had when she left Konoha all those years ago—why she left Konoha. "Did you ever find anyone from your clan?"

At that question, she opened her eyes halfway and gazed at the patches of night sky shifting in the leaves. "No. They're all dead," she said softly.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

She continued as if he had said nothing. "Yeah. I'm the only one left."

Kakashi did not know how to respond. In the realm of the shinobi, clans come and go. They become greedy or overpowered. Other groups, scared or jealous, wipe them out. Sometimes clans are just too inflexible to deal with changing times, and they simply collapse from within. Kodora would not be the first ninja in the world to be the sole survivor of a clan. Nor would she be the last. Even he, though technically not from a clan, was the last Hatake.

The Copy Ninja threw the rest of the wood he had gathered into the flames. The fire popped and hissed as it feasted on the last of the combustibles.

"It's a strange situation, you know—being the last of a dead clan." She still stared towards the sky, still spoke gently. "I still don't understand why I'm the one who outlived the rest. Do I have some obligation to them? Some onus? Do I revive my clan? Preserve traditions? If so, then I've wasted my life. But, I can't shake the idea that my survival was a complete fluke."

She didn't know why she was talking like this, but Kakashi's sudden reappearance in her life had stirred up old memories and feelings. "In this modern world, I don't think there's any place for my clan or its kekkei genkai. When I was young, we were already isolated from other people. We were declining in number and struggling to even exist. I think it was inevitable that they would vanish entirely. And history claimed the clan, but somehow, I slipped through its fingers. And where does that leave me? The past forgot me, but the future has no place for me. Is there a reason I'm still alive? In all the places I've been, I have yet to find one. But, I haven't found a reason to die yet either. So, I'm wandering around waiting for history to finish what it started."

"And how is that working out for you?" Kakashi had stopped reading.

The young kunoichi smirked. "I'm not dead, yet."

Her smirk abruptly vanished when she bolted upright, gripped her head, and gave a sharp groan of pain. Her shoulders stiffened with tension, and she sat there, shaking slightly. After a few seconds, the tension released, and she was left breathing hard, as if she had just sprinted at top speed.

_It's happening again,_ thought Kakashi. "Are you ok?"

"Yes," she hissed through clenched teeth without lifting her head out of her hands. She remained there, with Kakashi watching curiously, for a minute before she looked out to the side. She blinked several times, and eventually relaxed some, though she still looked annoyed.

_She adjusted faster this time._ "Does it hurt? When it happens…"

Kodora turned, and for the second time that day, Kakashi found himself facing the Sharingan. She pointed at her left eye. "This eye—is uncomfortable. It _feels_ unnatural," she said irritably. The woman twitched with another small spasm.

_Probably because it is. For both of us._ However, he did not remember the adjustment being that painful after Rin transplanted the Sharingan. "What I mean, is it always like that? With everybody…"

"No, it is not usually this bad. Most people don't trigger a physical change." She sighed. "But, other kekkei genkai are always unpleasant." It was the first time since she left Konoha that she had ever discussed her kekkei genkai with anyone. Openly mentioning it was a peculiar feeling—one that she was not sure she cared for—but she was tired from fighting the transformation all evening. He already knew about it, and she simply found it easier at this point to answer his questions.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"I don't know. Probably because they're unpleasant for the people who have them." Kodora lay back down. "I mean, there's always suffering associated with them. I think people with unique abilities are often feared or hated, but as long as they remain useful, others will tolerate it. And then clans with kekkei genkai develop elaborate schemes to preserve and protect their ability. They create all kinds of rules and customs, to the point where the individual is completely subservient to the ability. It's dehumanizing… isolating. I don't think I've ever met a shinobi with a kekkei genkai who was completely comfortable with who they were."

Kakashi agreed with her, thinking about the Hyuuga, Uchiha, and kekkei genkai clans he knew in other hidden villages. He, too, had never met anyone from those clans that was free of conflict about their ability, and even though his ability was not natural, he too had misgivings about it. Kodora probably understood so well because her clan was just like the rest. However, in truth, he knew hardly anything about her clan, not even the name. She had never revealed it. There was so much that he didn't understand, but here was someone who, superficially, was doing the one thing he couldn't—copying kekkei genkai, albeit temporarily.

"But the Sharingan—can you use it?" he asked.

"Huh? Sharingan?" She rolled her head to the side to look at him.

"The eye—can you use it?" He was sure she knew what the Sharingan was. She probably just was not paying attention.

"Oh, right, the eye. Mm. Well, I'd have to train and practice with it, but, yeah, theoretically, I could learn to use it as well as you do. But then, what would be the point? All that effort to master something I could only use if you were physically present? What a waste of my time. I'm much better off learning skills that don't require molding chakra beyond the most basic level. That way, I don't have to depend on anybody." Kodora answered truthfully, but she felt the Konoha-nin was starting to pry.

"But you said you've learned to control it, Kodora. So, you don't retain anything about the other person's chakra, and you still have problems with your own chakra? Then what about the ninjutsu? When you were a child, you claimed that you couldn't do any ninjutsu or genjutsu without mimicking someone else's chakra. That one technique you used way back then—and you know which one I'm talking about—you said that you couldn't do that again. But after all these years, back at the Kataoka compound you used ninjutsu—twice. And don't deny it; I saw you. You weren't using my chakra, that would have been obvious, and there weren't any other ninja around. I've got to say, something doesn't add up here."

Definitely prying. "Ok. One, I am simply not going to tell you how I managed that ninjutsu back at the Kataoka's. So don't bother asking. Two, controlling it only means that I can restrain the Hitaigi—"

"Hitaigi?"

"—the transformation—" it was really strange to hear someone else say the name "—you probably remember as a kid, I couldn't last ten minutes, but today I managed to resist you for a couple hours. Still, if someone is close enough for long enough, they'll trigger the Hitaigi, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. And when they leave, it leaves too, without exceptions, and I can no longer use their type of chakra." She was getting annoyed, but why did she care if he misunderstood?

"And, how far away do they have to go for you lose their ability?" asked the jounin, aware that he was probably hitting a wall with her forthrightness.

The Jutsu Shoubainin sat up at stared at him squarely. "Did you come here to escort me to Konoha, or did you come here to analyze my abilities, Kakashi?" she asked pointedly.

In response, he chided her bluntly. "Frankly, we don't know where you've been or what you've been doing for the past thirteen and half years, Kodora. Who knows what you got involved in, what kind of enemies and friends you've made. You just appear in this country out of nowhere, for no apparent reason. What did you expect? Flowers and a welcome party? Sure, I'm sorry that you had such a difficult childhood, but that does not mean we can just ignore the fact that you possess a poorly understood kekkei genkai and are wanted for crimes in other countries. Konoha is not taking chances with someone like you."

The kunoichi became indignant. She pinned him with her mismatched gaze. "I would never do anything to harm Konoha," she retorted in a low steady voice. "I may not have stayed, but when faced with a choice, I have acted in the interest of Konoha."

"But still—you left."

His Pecksniffian tone set her off. "And what kind of life would I have had if I stayed? Huh, Kakashi? Who would have looked after a messed-up orphan like me? It's fine for you—Konoha had always been your home, and no matter how many people you care about die, Konoha will always be there, needing you. I had a home and people I cared about once, too, and all that was taken away from me. Those things cannot simply be replaced with substitutes. Even if I had stayed physically in Konoha—maybe at the Ninja Academy, or who knows what—I would have always been an outsider. And as soon as other kids realized what I was, they would have treated me like an outsider, too."

"You can't assume that it would have been like that."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you ask Naruto about it? How the other kids treated him? People aren't always tolerant of things they don't understand."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How do you know—"

She kept going, though somewhere in the back of her mind, she was wondering if it was a good idea to lecture an elite jounin like Kakashi, but it was too late. She was already carried away. "I have absolutely no regrets about the life I chose. Through the constant challenges, I've learned to take care of and rely on myself. I've been forced to grapple with the side-effects of my kekkei genkai and I've become stronger for it. Konoha could not offer me the kinds of experiences I needed to grow, nor could they offer me someone to show me how to manage my abilities. I had to learn that on my own."

Barely pausing, she sucked in a quick breath and continued, "People like you and me had to grow up too quickly—had harsh lessons at a young age. However, we've coped with it in completely opposite ways. You're still dealing with the guilt, trying to make up for things that went wrong. Trying to understand it, like it's some kind of enemy that can be beaten if you could just figure out where its strength comes from. You won't let it go. I, on the other hand, have accepted the guilt, embraced it even. I ignore it the best I can and simply move on when it becomes too much. I know I'm not fully responsible for my situation, but I also know I'll never stop feeling like I am. It makes no sense, and I'm not even going to try to understand it. Which way of dealing with this is better? I can't say, but I don't think you should be judging me just because I chose a different path than you would have."

A suddenly uneasy Kakashi said nothing. As children, they had actually spoken very little. She shouldn't know him that well, and it was disquieting, how personal she had just gotten and how intensely accurately she depicted him. He felt like his mask was off and everybody was gaping at his face.

Kodora looked away from him, unable to bare it and embarrassed at losing her temper like that. "Shit. I think I need some rest," was all she said. She lay back down and turned to face away from him.

The other ninja was left scowling at her back. Something was not right here.

* * *

Terms

A _furoshiki _(風呂敷) is a cloth used in Japan to wrap things, especially gifts, clothes, and lunch boxes.

All the places that Kodora mentioned traveling to are not from canon. _Yuki no Kuni_ is the Snow Country from the first movie. _Kazan no Kuni_ means "Volcano Country", _Uma-Jima_ means "Horse Islands", and _Koukouya_ means "Yellow Wastelands".

* * *

**Next chapter, the return to Konoha. What does the Hokage want from Kodora?**


	7. Konoha Revisited

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

_It is the smell that wakes her. It smells like danger. But so quiet. She reaches under her pillow and grips the knife there. A gift from her grandmother. "Never let your guard down," she had said._

_Slide out of bed into the sandals. Keep silent. Pull the topcoat on. The ground is cold. Mother? Grandmother? There are shadows among the images of the people she knows. And fear. Where did the fear come from? Is this her fear or someone else's?_

_Something is not right here. They must know by now. She runs to the next tent chamber and shakes her brother. Kocchan, I'm sleeping. A scream. Not in her head this time. More shaking. "Wake up!" Someone dying. Someone she knew. The pain is too much. Her brother rises, sees the look, the knife. He is up and armed._

_The clan is waking, but there is dying and confusion. So many shadows now. Mother! The thought echoes. Her brother pushes her down, under his cot. Father is dead, his last thought about them. Kodora, run! Her mother's last thought. Panic. The shadows are in the room. Hr brother strikes, but he is so small. His body collapses. She sees his blood._

_So many shadows in the camp. They are so fast. She runs. Away from the dying. Run faster. You are too slow. The sandals fly off. Too slow. Her bare feet on the cold dirt. Too slow. One on her right. Grabs her wrist. She slashes. A scream. She slashes again. It falls dead._

_A shadow on her left. A flash of a blade. "Don't kill her, idiot!" A new shadow in front. Large. It lifts her up by the neck. "What's your name?" This shadow will hurt her. It shakes her, strangles her. Grandmother! She can't be dead, too. Where is her presence? "Your name, girl?" Menace. Looking straight into its eyes. Its face is dark._

"_Kodora."_

_A little shadow nods. Makes a note in a scroll. She swings the knife up. Cuts into the dark. A yell and blood. "Little Bitch." The shadow drops her. Hits her hard. She had never been hit like that. Things spin. More dying._

_There is a cage. They force her inside. Her friends, her cousins are there. Scared. Only the girls. The rest are dead._

**Chapter 7 - Konoha Revisited**

Kodora's eyes snapped open, and she sucked a deep breath. _A dream,_ she told herself. The sky was dark. She lay still for a moment, trying to remember where she was. It was like this every time. She always had to concentrate to remember where she was when she woke up. Hi no Kuni. Hatake Kakashi. Headed to Konoha.

Now she knew. Unfortunately, she would not be able to sleep again tonight. She looked over at Kakashi, who was having no problems with nightmares. The fire was completely cold. Her eye itched when she thought about him. However, while in Hitaigi it was easy for her to read the state of his sleep. Her stirring had brought him into a shallow doze. After time, he would slip into a deeper slumber. It would be hard to sneak away from such a ninja, even while he slept.

**- - -**

Kakashi roused at the first light of the dawn. The sun would be up soon. He recalled the aborted conversation with Kodora from last night. Though he had managed to discover more about her, he had ended up with more questions. Then, she had gotten angry and lashed out. For a ninja, she was moody, more than the average kunoichi. During their sparring, she had remained calm and unreadable, but otherwise, she acted more like Naruto.

One thing was certain. She was gone.

Somehow, she had disappeared without waking him, quite an accomplishment, but one that left him disconcerted. He looked around the campsite for signs, and noticed a small pile of nuts, berries, shoots, and some kind of peeled root that he could not identify. She had gotten up, foraged for breakfast, and even left him some food. It was considerate, but where was she now?

It was a good thing that he was a tracking expert. He followed her trail through the trees, to the point where the forest thinned out and the ground sloped gently to a small, spring-fed lake. Metallic scarab beetles took flight as he disturbed their leaves. Remaining concealed in the shadows of the woods, Kakashi looked out over the lake, spying the woman on the far side. She rose out of the water like a naiad, exposed to her lower back, facing away from him. Her long, brown hair was wet and plastered to her body. Spread out atop the large granite boulders on the shore were her clothes, catching the first sunrays of the morning. He understood now, she had left to clean up.

He was relieved that she had not simply run away. That saved him the trouble of having to track her down and take her to Konoha by force. On the far side of lake, Kodora stiffened. She hugged herself across the chest and turned her head to the side. Had she sensed him watching? Kakashi shook his head. He had not been intentionally peeping, but it certainly did look suspicious. It was probably best to withdraw quietly back to camp.

Shortly after he finished the small, bucolic breakfast, Kodora returned to the campsite. Her hair was wrapped back up in a knot at the base of her skull, but, not fully dry, it was darker than its normal shade. She had her pack on, ready to go.

"Good morning," she greeted. The cold water of the lake had refreshed her, and she was willing to forget the verbal confrontation from the night before.

"Morning," he replied lazily. He was ready to go as well.

It was almost noon when they reached Konoha. The land through which the two shinobi traveled had gradually revealed signs of settlement. A farmhouse popped up here and there, with verdant rice paddies stretched out in the sun. Eventually, they had connected with the main road to the village. No longer jumping through the treetops, they walked along this dusty trail, nodding to the occasional traveler passing by.

Finally, after climbing one last gentle acclivity, after over fourteen years, Kodora beheld the massive entrance gates of Konohagakure. The tall green doors were wide open, presenting the word "AN" painted in giant red letters. It was simultaneously a welcoming sight and an intimidating sight. Konoha was a dangerous beast. Respect it, and it will leave you in peace. Threaten it, and it will snap your neck without remorse.

Konoha _had_ changed, noted Kodora. She gazed up at Mount Hokage. The last time she had stood at these gates, only three stony faces overlooked the village. Since that time, Kakashi's former sensei had become Hokage and had died in service to his people. Seeing the face of Yondaime carved into the cliff for the first time, Kodora was struck still as vivid memories of the past surfaced unbidden.

"Come on, Kodora. Let's go." Kakashi interrupted her personal reverie. Not without trepidation, Kodora followed him through the gates.

**- - -**

Sandaime's office was a clutter of unfinished paperwork with a sophisticated scent of tobacco permeating the air. Standing impassively in front of his desk were two ninja, facing the situation from completely different perspectives.

"Thank you, Kakashi. Would you please wait outside?" requested Sandaime. The jounin vacated as instructed, closing the door behind him.

Sandaime inhaled deeply from him pipe as he scrutinized the kunoichi. The sickly ten-year-old girl had survived to adulthood, grown almost as tall as Kurenai and apparently pursuing the path of the shinobi along the way. At present, she kept her thoughts to herself, as her jaded expression revealed that she was neither afraid nor intimidated. She had grown into an attractive enough young woman, but with a slender, athletic build instead of the sensual curves that spoke of femininity. And, her equipment was quite utilitarian—no high heels, no jewelry, no makeup, no colorful clothing. The only thing that Sandaime could find that hinted at girlish vanity was her long hair, although she wore it wrapped up tight.

"Kodora, it has been a long time since you visited us. I am pleased to see that you are doing well," stated the Hokage respectfully.

"Thank you. And I am pleased to see that you are also doing well, Hokage-sama, and that Konoha is prospering in these peaceful times," she responded graciously.

The smoothness of her words was not lost on the Hokage. He had wanted to gather his own empirical impressions of the tabiyaku-nin before discussing her with Kakashi. However, at the moment, he had business to discuss with her, and so he dropped the ossified formality. "You are probably wondering why I summoned you here."

"I won't deny my curiosity."

"Then, I will get to the point. Konoha is requesting your assistance to apprehend a wanted criminal."

"A criminal?" she asked, uneasiness building in her gut.

"A criminal that has alluded capture for many years—the human trafficker, Sanchou."

Something dark flashed across her face at the mention of the name. She quickly regained her dispassionate poise, but the reaction did not go unnoticed by Sandaime, although, it was less of a response than he had expected.

"Since you left Konoha, we have arrested no less than six men, who, in every case, have claimed to be Sanchou. They had even had their appearances altered to match the description that you gave us. Our intelligence contacts and even associates of Sanchou truly believed that these men where indeed the notorious criminal. However, under interrogation, each of these men broke down and confessed that they were merely body doubles and not the real Sanchou, a truth supported by the fact that Sanchou's enterprise continued to operate uninterrupted after each arrest."

"For the past two years, we have known the general area were Sanchou is operating, but, considering our difficultly in capturing the right man, I've refrained from sending a team and risking more lives. Your reappearance, though, presents us with a unique opportunity, since you are the one person alive who is confirmed to have seen Sanchou's face.

"I would like you to accompany a team of ANBU to Sanchou's base. With your positive identification, we will be certain to detain the correct man this time. Konoha would be grateful for your cooperation in this matter, Kodora. With Sanchou in our custody, the information that we will extract may allow us to bring down the entire human trafficking network in this area."

Kodora's gaze shifted to the ground as she digested the information the Hokage had just imparted. Sanchou. A name she never wanted to hear again. "Hokage-sama. As you probably expect, I have an intense desire to see such a man as Sanchou brought to justice for his heinous crimes. But more than that, I also have to consider my own protection."

"The ANBU will protect you during the mission," assured Sandaime.

"Not that kind of protection—I'm talking about protection of my identity. Since leaving Konoha, I have never disclosed to anyone the nature of my kekkei genkai nor my clan. My relationship with Sanchou is intertwined with these things, and I do not see how I can support your ANBU in this mission without revealing the facts of my past to the team. With all due respect, Sandaime-sama, I am sure Konoha's ANBU are trustworthy, but I simply refuse to discuss it with them," she stated adamantly.

"I see…" said the Hokage as he took another drag on his pipe.

"Despite that, I believe that Sanchou should not be allowed to operate freely. I am not a shinobi without resources. If you give me the intelligence you have on Sanchou, I will personally apprehend him and deliver him to Konoha."

_Can you do that Kodora? Can you face that man and let him live?_ "A solo mission is never recommended, and this mission will be dangerous."

"I am aware of that, and I accept the risks."

"Nonetheless, it would be irresponsible of me to send a ninja, even one not under my command, alone on such a hazardous mission. Perhaps I can offer you a compromise. I believe that the elite jounin, Hatake Kakashi, is already aware of your history with Sanchou as well as your kekkei genkai. If I assign this mission to him, instead of an ANBU team, would that be acceptable to you? You will only need to identify Sanchou to Kakashi, and Kakashi will signal the ANBU to support the arrest."

Kodora weighed the options. Clearly, Sandaime was not going to let her do this alone, and she could give no logical reason to refuse Kakashi's help. It was either this, or let Sanchou run free. She looked across the desk at the legendary ninja and nodded her assent.

"Good, good. Then I will dismiss you for now and inform Kakashi of his mission. You have permission to remain in the village until you depart. Thank you for your assistance, Kodora. Please ask Kakashi to come in on your way out."

She let the practiced stoicism go, and smiled unexpectedly at the Hokage. She had fond memories of the kindness of the man, and she wanted to leave him with a friendly association. "It's the least I can do, Hokage-sama," she said before she turned and exited the office.

The Third Hokage bit thoughtfully on the wooden end of his pipe as he watched her leave. It was ironic how things turned out sometimes, how people could change so much, yet remain exactly the same.

After a minute, Kakashi had taken Kodora's place in front of the Hokage. Hands shoved in his pockets, he looked as unexcited as ever.

"So, Kakashi, what do you think about our young kunoichi friend?" inquired Sandaime, puffing on his pipe.

"From what I observed, she has chuunin-level skills."

"Then you saw her fight?"

"Yeah, some. Her speed and stamina are high, but her strength is poor. She concentrates on taijutsu, understandably, but I also witnessed her use some D-Rank ninjutsu earlier. She wasn't using her kekkei genkai at the time."

Sandaime recalled what he read in her file. "Hmm. From what she explained before, she shouldn't be able to perform ninjutsu at all without using her kekkei genkai. She said that her natural chakra couldn't be molded to complete those kinds of techniques, even basic ones."

"Yes, that's what I thought, too. She admitted to using the ninjutsu, but she wouldn't say how. I can only conclude that she's hiding something."

"Mm…yes it appears so. Did you see her use her kekkei genkai at all?"

"Yeah, twice, but not in any useful way. I have yet to see how that kekkei genkai could provide her any advantage in battle. It seems to be mostly an involuntary reaction, and not a pleasant one at that. However, she did let the name slip, 'Hitaigi'. Have you ever heard of it?"

The term was not in his lexicon. "Hmm…no, I can't say that I have," admitted the Hokage.

"Me either. And another thing, she's proven to be rather clever. I think we need to be careful with her," warned the jounin.

"Do you think she is a threat to Konoha?"

"As near as I can tell, no—she doesn't seem to have much motivation about anything. But I just can't fit the woman to the reputation. There's something else going on here."

"Then, it pleases me to give you another opportunity to find out, Kakashi."

"Eh?"

"I'm sending you on a mission with her."

**- - -**

The Copy Ninja had taken the assignment in stride, but it was actually a strange situation. He and his sensei had discovered Kodora about thirteen and a half years ago as part of an operation to locate Sanchou. Now, he was after the same man again, a powerful man who reportedly kept his face hooded and used body doubles judiciously to evade capture. And he was to escort the girl as a witness, who, by all reason, should want Sanchou dead. In addition, Sandaime-sama had requested that he gather more information about his charge, as a sensible precaution. He should not be going on a mission like this alone. The fact that the ANBU would be trailing them was no comfort.

Finally, he located the strange kunoichi. After her conference with Sandaime, she had his approbation to stay in Konoha, but the place where Kakashi found her surprised him. She was at the Yondaime Hokage memorial, kneeling in front of the large golden flame with her head down and her eyes closed. In front of the plaque, she had laid a single white carnation. _Paying respects?_ thought Kakashi. He had come to arrange for their departure, but finding her like this, he couldn't interrupt. Instead, he watched her silently from a distance.

The scene was rather touching, and Kakashi realized that his sensei had made an impact in her life that she probably would never forget. And, Minato tended to make lasting impressions on everyone he encountered. And though, since he met her again, she had been aloof and even inimical, she had probably never forgotten him either. Wandering from place to place, not quite fitting in, of course she was cautious with others. For someone like her, trust was probably difficult. That, he could relate to. Perhaps he would learn more about her if he stopped prodding for a while and gave her a chance to explain herself on her own time.

She remained there, motionless, and, after a while, Kakashi left her in peace. He could catch up later.

In front of the monument, where no one could see, Kodora smiled after the other ninja slipped away.

**- - -**

Later in the day, it was not Kakashi who found Kodora, but the other way around. He was lounging on the rooftop of the local playhouse, quietly enjoying an erotic tale of courtly love from _Icha Icha Paradise_, when she dropped in by his feet. Annoyingly enough, he had not sensed her coming. She seemed to have some talent in this area.

"Good afternoon, Kakashi-san," she said cheerily as she waved at him.

"Hey," he replied placidly.

"I had a terribly interesting conversation with Sandaime-sama this morning."

"So did I. He even assigned me another mission." Kakashi continued to read.

"Yes. It looks like you get the exciting job of keeping me from harm, or out of trouble—whatever Hokage-sama intends."

"Are you going to make this mission more challenging?" he asked, only half-joking.

She grinned innocently. "I do have a knack for finding trouble."

"Mm. Something to look forward to. Well then, we leave tomorrow at dawn. Meet me at the front gate. You can spend the rest of day gathering supplies you might need. And pick up some rations this time."

"How do I know what supplies to bring, if I don't know where we're going?"

She had a point, but Kakashi was wary of giving her too much information at first. He knew her history with the man they sought, and he also knew she was used to working alone. With a dry thump, he closed his book and looked her in the eyes. "If I tell you where we're going, you won't try to take care of this on your own, will you?"

She laughed. "Lay off the suspicion for while, huh? If I ran off like that, you'd just track me down anyway. I'm not going anywhere."

"Ok, then. We're going to Kawa no Kuni."

"Kawa no Kuni? Good, that's not very far. And I'm not wanted there, either."

He was amused by her concern. "Neither am I, so that makes our lives easier."

"All right. Until tomorrow, Kakashi-san." The kunoichi vanished.

After a moment, Kakashi realized that she hadn't even used Shunshin no Jutsu to disappear. Instead of ninjutsu, she simply used her natural speed to give the appearance of the technique. _This is going to be interesting, _he thought to himself before returning to the antics in his favorite book.

* * *

Terms

_Kawa no Kuni_ (川の国) is the River Country. This country is the location of the hidden Akatsuki base where Teams Gai and Kakashi confront Sasori and Deidara.

* * *

**Next chapter, the pair sets out for Kawa no Kuni!**


End file.
